Aching Hearts, Innocent Blood
by Salvatoreboys4ever
Summary: Follows after The Power Within. Book 4 in EBB series. Damon has lost everything and stumbles back to the Boarding House to die. He is succumbing to the werewolf toxin, aching to have his family back. Katherine has escaped her own death and Klaus took Caroline's body and ran. But what he saw wasn't all what it seemed. There is still hope...if they can reach him in time...DELENA
1. Nothing Left

**Author's note: Here is Book 4 the final one of this series.**

 **Special thank to Carol for her beautiful collage for this story! I didn't even know of that option when I started this series years ago and I will make one for the other books yet too.**

 **I wrote all this in one day here this afternoon.**

 **Enjoy and happy reading!**

* * *

He waited...for the burn, the rush of fire on his skin to devour him whole and wipe his broken heart and body from the face of the earth.

He had nothing left. Nothing. Everyone he loved was gone. All his hopes and dreams for the future were gone. Elena was gone. His babies were gone. Stefan was gone.

Damon lifted his head from its bowed state and opened his tired and bloodshot blue eyes.

He wasn't burning.

Scanning the wide expanse of sky above him he saw that the clouds were completely hiding any sunlight behind them. It was probably still mid afternoon, but not one speck of sunlight shone down to burn his exposed skin.

Cursing under his breath he snarled and stood up. He spun fast and violently kicked at the brickwork on the front porch of the boarding house. The poison ravaging his body of all its strength somehow didn't stop him from kicking till his foot felt numb and he had broken the smooth ornate wall to pieces.

He wanted to die and he couldn't even do that as fast as he needed. Stupid cloudy day!

His thoughts were consumed with images of his Elena. Her pale skin, blue lips, her lifeless body hanging off his arm. Her beautiful brown eyes sealed shut, her lips so, so cold and her face just empty of everything that was her.

"Elena," he cried out, falling to his knees again and picked up a piece of the brick. He hurled it hard into one of the windows, shattering the glass. "Elena, please...please come back to me," he begged.

Damon stumbled back into the mansion, slamming the door behind him and nearly tripped over his own feet before falling against the table where he thought he left his expensive bottle of bourbon. Where the hell was it? His vision was going from clear to blurry and he wasn't even drunk.

He was dying, he knew that. But he sure as hell didn't want to die from the damn werewolf venom. He wanted to take his life the way _he_ wanted to, not the way the fucking Original wanted. That one last thing he could control, when the rest of his world spun out of control and was ripped away from him... right in front of his eyes.

His vision cleared, long enough for him to see the bottle wedged between the couch cushions.

He was not nearly drunk enough for what he was about to do.

His muscles were betraying him and he could barely stay standing, but threw himself toward the couch and grasped the bottle in his fist. Ahh the liquid felt so good down his raw and dry throat. He felt his organs like fire in his body and he didn't even feel the burn of the alcohol that was strong enough to strip a few layers of skin as he gulped greedily. Swallowing a few more times, his head fell back.

This was where Elena had dreamed that he was holding one of their babies and as he rocked them against his chest. She had said the fire was crackling in the darkness of the night while Damon had been dancing and swaying. She dreamed that she walked up to him and they held each other and their baby between them as they danced to sooth their little one to sleep.

Damon let out a sob at the memory of her dream and the ache it left him with that he would never hold his Elena again.

He hadn't even held his children yet. His twins. He had only felt their little heartbeats in her beautiful belly. It had been a miracle that he was going to be a father and now that was all just gone...just like the bourbon in the bottle he still had clutched in his good hand.

"Elena, noo," he sniffled and choked on his tears that had been running steadily down his cheeks since he fell to the couch.

A lock of his hair fell to his brow and he pushed it back with his bloody, poisoned hand. His raven black hair was wet and streaked with blood.

His blood had been all over her as he held her as the cabin burned...as Klaus walked toward them and Damon pulled them both to the dock, backing away. She had buried herself against his blood soaked body, curling in as close as she could be to him and away from the Original coming to take her away.

Damon could still feel her arms around him, her head against his bare chest, just like so many times back in the tomb days ago. He had been her anchor, her reason to live and he had protected her with everything that he was.

He would have died for her and almost did. But now she was gone and there was nothing left to live for.

Nothing meant anything anymore. Not without her…

And Stefan...damn it, he was gone too. His lifeless stare had chilled Damon to the bone. The empty look in Stefan's wide dead eyes was ingrained in his head permanently. His baby brother did not deserve what happened to him at all. He had tried to save Katherine of all people and she had done what she always did...saved herself by stealing the cure that Caroline had stolen for Stefan and then run to survive and left him to die. She didn't love him. She had never loved anyone but herself.

She had run, knowing Klaus was going to kill them all and take Elena. She didn't care about losing her precious Salvatore boys again and just left them. He hated her beyond what he ever thought possible. She was the reason for every fucking thing they went though in the last few days. Her and Klaus. The immortal Original wanting to take Elena to use her and his babies for his own power.

"Damn you Katherine! Damn you Klaus!" Damon screamed into the empty room. He stood up and swiped all the decanters off the drink counter and they crashed to the floor. He lifted the table and flipped it upside down, breaking it apart. Spinning around he ripped books from the shelves and tore pictures from the wall.

"God damn it Elena!" he sobbed, throwing the empty bourbon bottle into the fireplace and it shattered to pieces with a loud crash. He felt renewed strength as he tore apart the room, throwing the couch upside down, tearing the leather on his favorite chair to shreds and ripping anything off any surface. He was panting hard when he collapsed to his knees in the destroyed room.

The parlor now looked like his barely beating heart.

Damon remembered her looking around it in awe of the huge space and the period pieces all around. How transported back to another time the whole room looked. He had told her when they made love the first time too how much he knew at that moment that she would be the one to bring him back to life. Her innocence in that moment stepping down the steps into this room, her wonder and childlike awe of where he lived intrigued him and he was as smitten with her as he said Stefan was.

Now the room looked like he felt. Everything was broken, shattered beyond repair.

He knew where he wanted to die and could feel his strength fading fast. He had no idea how he even had the strength to rip apart his precious parlor. He moved slowly across the floor and saw what he was looking for on the rug near the fireplace.

Damon crawled on his hands and knees, ignoring the glass slicing into his palms. He paused picking up what he needed. Flipping open the decorative box the vampire lifted out the perfectly made stake they kept for emergencies.

Having what he needed he closed the box, tossing it back on the floor littered with broken glass and all the decorative pieces from all over the room. He closed his eyes slowly, hanging his head as more tears slipped down his face.

He suddenly felt a hand on his cheek and his eyes flew open! He lifted his gaze and saw her, his Lena looking back at him!

"Elena?" he rasped out, hardly believing his eyes. He blinked and strained to focus as she went blurry in front of him. Squinting and blinking again he saw she was still there.

He watched her smile sadly at him as he nearly jumped back as he could feel her hand under his still caressing his cheek. He could feel her...was she really there?

"You're dead baby," he whispered to her. "You can't be here."

She clearly winced at his statement. His love was quiet and she didn't deny it. Was he hallucinating?

Elena looked so much different than his last image of her. Her skin was soft and pink, not dark and pale like before. Her lips supple and petal soft as his hand moved from her cheek to tug her bottom lip gently with his thumb. He heard her whimper softly as his hand cupped her face, his fingers weaving between the strands of her smooth brunette locks.

He felt more pain tug at his already dying heart. She looked so real, so alive and as beautiful as he had ever seen her. Could this possibly be real?

It felt as real at their kiss in the tomb...when the wolf forced them to make out in front of Stefan…

 _He just barely brushed his lips against hers and he felt her body shudder against his. He felt her lips moving, slowly and tentatively like she had no idea what to do. Damon moaned softly against her mouth. She felt_ _ _so__ _good._

 _He opened his eyes as they kissed, just in time to see Stefan collapse against the wall in the tomb. Damon's heart wrenched at the thought of what this must be doing to his brother but the wolf had warned that he better put on a good show or that animal would hurt her again. So despite Stefan's anguish, he was going to really kiss her. Just like he had always dreamed. He took one last look at Stefan who's head was in his hands but his eyes absolutely glued to them from across the dark room and shut out his brothers pain to focus on Elena._

 _Oh God forgive him, he thought as he opened his lips and the taste of her flooded into his mouth. He had kissed her so hard before and his mind, despite being aware of her, was very focused on his plan to kill Brody. He had barely recalled how she tasted then and this time he savored every emotion, touch, sound and feeling. His eyes widened in surprise to find her already open mouthed ready to let him in. She was so delicious; like strawberries, and vanilla and more fruity deliciousness._

 _He moved his hands down her neck to her shoulders trailing them down her back. He felt her tremble again at his touch as he met her tongue so soft in her mouth with his. Damon groaned in pleasure, his senses going into overdrive. He could taste the bourbon on her lips and sucked in her bottom lip hungrily. She smelled of bourbon and blood and he smiled. His favorite combination._

"I am here Damon, for you." She spoke so softly he could barely hear her as he pulled himself from his thoughts.

He moved in closer, resting his forehead to hers studying her face, just daring his vision to fade. She didn't disappear. He moved in even closer and gently pressed his lips to hers.

Damon moaned in pure bliss at the taste of her on his tongue. She was there and as he opened more, tenderly tangling his fingers in her hair, he felt her arms wrap around his neck.

He fell back against the broken couch behind him, pulling his love into his lap. Her kisses felt so perfect, so warm and soothing...so unreal.

His breath was ragged as he pulled back, caught in the trance of her bright brown eyes. "I need you so much Elena. I need you to be here. I'm lost without you..." He was smoothing her hair from her face as he gazed lovingly at the woman he loved more than anything. He could barely feel the pain of the poison right now.

She shook her head back, her hair falling in waves down her back. "I am here Damon. I love you… I love you so much."

Damon smiled at her, thinking he would never see her again. "I love you too baby. More than you will ever know." He reached for her again as his hand looked like it went right through her. What the hell?!

His eyes squinted to see clearly, thinking he imagined what he just saw. But she was fading away. He moved to grab for her, to hold on any way he could as she looked hazier every time he blinked.

"No, no Elena. You can't go!" he cried out. She was smiling as her face just vanished in front of his eyes. In a flash he jumped up, reaching though empty air.

She was just a hallucination. She wasn't really there. She never had been. Feeling her, touching her, kissing her had not been real.

* * *

Previously back at the Gilbert Lake House...

 _He ripped the stake from his gut, jumped to his feet and pulled the syringe from his pocket. He pulled her hair back and plunged it into her neck before pulling it out and letting it fall to the grass. He knelt by the dead brother wishing he had been faster. Damon had just ran thinking he lost everything. His love, his children and his brother. He had to find him before it was too late! He hung his head, wanting to fix everything._

 _His head flew up in the next second and he scrambled up looking madly on the ground...where the hell was it?! His eyes finally focused and he grabbed for the handle of the dagger and held it up. Blood...Klaus' blood all over it from when he plunged it into his heart._

 _Elijah scraped his finger across the red wetness and pushed it between the young blonde vampire's lips, wiping all the blood off both sides of the sword. He fell to the ground between the two young people and just waited..._

* * *

 _He wasn't sure how long it was that he just sat there waiting when suddenly there was a gasp and choking sound and Elijah let out a deep breath as the blonde vampire sat up in shock, his eyes so wide and his breath heaving out of him._

 _Stefan looked around wildly. What the hell had happened?! He blinked and realized he was sitting, his arms behind him, supporting him more than they had been for hours. He saw Elijah just collapsed on the ground, his suit wrinkled and his eyes as equally wide at him. "What… how…?"_

 _Elijah merely looked at him holding up his red sticky hand. "Blood, I got my brother's blood." Stefan seemed completely stunned and wiped his lips feeling the substance against his mouth._

 _He was healed, cured? He turned his head and felt no pain. Then his head fell down to the arm that had been destroyed by the bite and he watched in amazement as the veins faded, and receded and his skin turned back to its normal color. He sucked in a breath and pinched himself just to be sure. Oh my God. He wasn't dreaming!_

 _He looked back at Elijah and his gaze fell down to Elena. "Elena?" he breathed out remembering Damon cradling her in his arms. Crying over her, trying to get her to breath for ages. "But Elena..." he trailed off._

 _Elijah held up his hand, shaking his head. "Its all my fault if she doesn't wake up," he whispered._

 _"Wait what?" Stefan's head shot up from looking down at her pale and so still body. He pulled himself to his feet. It felt amazing to be able to stand, to feel strength in his muscles. He could hardly believe it. He took a few shaky steps forward till he could kneel at Elena's side. "She's asleep?...not dead?"_

 _Elijah nodded to him. "Yes I gave her a drug, back at the cabin, once she fainted when Klaus threatened to burn down the cabin. It had a delayed reaction time, hours later. It would make her appear dead, slow her heart to nothing and still keep her and the babies alive."_

 _"Are you being serious right now?" Stefan gasped. "She is alive?...even Damon's babies are both alive!?" He could not get out of his head the devastation on Damon's face, tears streaming down his cheeks as he had his ear to her belly and realized his babies were gone. Stefan felt tears in his own eyes that his brother's family would be okay. Wait...where was Damon?_

 _He jumped back to his feet, feeling strength in his body more than he had in days. "Damon! Where's my brother?" He looked back to Elijah._

 _"Your brother ran. Just before Klaus took off." He saw Stefan ready to run too. "I'm sorry Stefan. It had to look real. He had to believe it. I told you before that the only way we could stop him was if we nullified one of the ingredients in his spell. He needed Elena alive...so now that she isn't, she will be safe. She can leave here, be cloaked and protected."_

 _Stefan threw his hands up in the air. "You mean that my brother. My SO love with this woman and his miracle family big brother, thinks Elena...his children...and I are all DEAD?!"_

 _Elijah nodded slowly._

 _"Well we need to find him. He will be reeling in pain. He will kill himself!" Stefan cried out panicked._

 _"I tried to stop him Stefan I did. But I couldn't tell him in front of Klaus and his reaction had to be real or Klaus would not have bought it."_

 _Stefan was already picking up Elena in his arms, his arms under her legs and back._

 _"Wait where are you going?" Elijah stood up too. Completely exhausted from everything but still hating that things had gone so wrong._

 _Stefan adjusted her in his arms so her head was more against his chest and not falling down limply off his arm. "I'm bringing Damon's family back to him. He_ _ _has__ _to know there is still hope!"_

* * *

Damon collapsed back to the wood floor, his head in his hands. He pulled at his wet hair and growled deep in his throat. No, no he couldn't lose her. He smashed his fist against the dark wood and felt pain tear through his hand and up his arm. He slammed it again and again till he saw blood staining the wood and he lifted his good hand to see his knuckles bleeding and not healing.

Falling back he felt something behind him and curled his bloody fingers around to lift it up. It was the stake, now stained red with his blood dripping down the side of it.

The dark haired vampire stared at the smooth piece of wood with the bead of his blood running down it. It was so sharp and so delicately crafted. He turned it around in his hand and then stood back up. He stumbled up the stairs to his room and pushed open the door.

His bed was still unmade, the signs of the fight he had with his brother still around the space. Even the bathroom still looked like it did just after he had stepped into the bath with her when she was too weak to hold herself up.

Elena's purple bra and lacy boy shorts were still on the tiled floor, his jeans still hanging off the counter, his black button down in the sink where he tossed it after she had nearly slipped under the bubbles as he helped her into his tub.

Stumbling forward into the bathroom, his fingers gripped the edge of the counter as Damon's eyes fell closed at the memory of her bare back against his chest, his head sinking down behind him in the bliss of having her so close to him.

 _His head fell back against the hard porcelain of the tub, his eyes fluttering closed, feeling her leaning her bare back against him as she drank from him. His resolve in being the gentleman was getting harder every second she was against him so intimately. Stefan would kill him if he walked in on them right now. What the hell was he doing?_

More memories of being so close to her came flooding into his head...

 _Damon poured water from a wine glass he had sitting out over her head to wash her hair. It was full of tangles and blood. He pulled his fingers delicately through her hair to untangle it as much as he could and then poured the soap into his hands. He thought he heard her moan as he started massaging the shampoo in her hair and her head fell back into his hands._

He had whispered to her to trust him and then slowly turned her around in the water, feeling it swishing around them. Her hands were over her bare breasts as the bubbles had melted away more and more the longer they were in there.

 _He could hear that she was nervous being so close to him. Her heart was pounding hard and fast. But after he soothed her with his words he could hear it slow down. Her eyes were on his and he almost gasped aloud as he felt her legs over top of his._

 _He wanted her so much. He wanted to pull her into his lap and kiss every inch of her. She was so close to him like this and it made his jeans even more uncomfortable. But he swallowed the hunger deep within him and thought more of her feelings; how vulnerable and weak she was and all she had been through. No, this was not the right time as much as he wanted it to be._

 _He stroked her cheek tenderly thinking about all she had done to try to save them. She had risked her own life trying to shoot and stab Brody and kill him to save them all. He had never seen her stronger in his life and wished so desperately that she was his..._

Damon's undead heart clenched painfully for more time with her. His chin quivered as he tasted his tears at his lips. Moving backwards out of the bathroom, he fell crying silently onto his bed.

He barely had a day of them being happy and in love. Her choosing him and wanting forever with him. It had felt surreal how happy he was. How it felt everything was finally right in his world. He had a family, another chance to be a dad after being turned so many years ago. He had a woman that loved him beyond what he ever dreamed.

She had finally confessed her love...love he had for her since the moment he met her. But she had fought her feelings for him so long. He had waited and after the hell they survived in the tomb with the werewolf, she had that next day finally admitted her true feelings. Elena thought Damon had died when his car exploded and she told him later that was the moment she truly knew she couldn't live without him.

Damon sniffled, curling up on his bed and buried his nose in the pillow she had slept on. His body had betrayed him in so many ways, his vision, his speed and senses and he could feel the blood in his throat...but despite all that... he could smell her on his sheets.

He inhaled deeply, curling his knees up, not caring that his boots were on his bed, the blood from his broken body smearing on the clean crisp sheets. He felt more pain rip through his stomach and fought though it and focused on her scent. It was glorious, like light to his dark and heaven to his hell in that moment.

The pillow was getting soaked in his tears as he let go. He had never been this emotional in his whole life, human or not. He had always held it in or lashed out in anger, but never succumbed to grief like this. He cried for his precious girl, his babies and his brother. He cried that this was how it was going to end.

Damon wanted to stop feeling. He couldn't take it. It hurt too much. He blinked, wiping his hand over his wet cheek and felt around for the stake he brought with him.

It was time. This was where he wanted to die.

He curled up on the side of the bed she had been sleeping on, turning his head to inhale once more, to envelope his weak senses in nothing but her. He took it in...it was all he had left of her and lifted the stake to his bare chest, his knuckles white around its base.

The dark black lines were almost at his heart, his hand burning and looking like a bloody messy mass of flesh from the poison. The black lines had snaked their way up his arms and he was sure were circling his head as well. He felt blood coming up his throat and leaned to gag and throw it up before pulling himself back up. The blood dripped down from his lips and he leveled the stake, ready to slam it into his heart.

"I love you my angels," Damon breathed out weakly. "I'm coming to be with you… Daddy's coming..."

He lifted the stake above his heart, steadying it as it was shaking in his hand. He gritted his teeth focusing to still the trembles in his body.

He was just about to plunge it down into his chest when he was surprised he picked up the sound of a door being slammed and someone calling his name…

* * *

"Damon! Damon!" the voice called again getting louder and he sat up, dropping the stake. He could swear it was his brothers voice!

Straining to hear, he was quiet waiting for the voice again. It must be another one of his hallucinations.

Fuck, now he was hearing Stefan alive just like he imagined Elena was too!

He nearly jumped out of his skin when the next second there was a loud crash and his door was swung open, almost breaking the hinges off and Stefan stumbled into his bedroom!

Damon could hardly believe what he was seeing and shook his head back and forth waiting for the images in front of him to fade away again. "Stefan? What?" He had no idea what to say.

"Damon! Oh thank God you are okay!" his brother gasped out and raced into the room.

It was only once he was right in front of the bed that he saw what Stefan was cradling in his arms.

He stood to his knees on the bed as Stefan laid her down gently, her limp body wrapped in his leather jacket.

"Elena?" His brain must be playing tricks on him, because no matter how many times he blinked... she was still there, laying on his bed. She was still so pale, her lips still blue, her wet hair in tangles around her head.

Damon pulled his gaze from her to look back up into his brother's worried green eyes. He reached out and touched Stefan on the cheek, his hand shaking. "You're...you're not alive. This isn't real."

He jolted back as Stefan grabbed his shoulders and shook him. "Damon, it is real! I'm here! Elena's here!"

The elder Salvatore shook his head again and felt more sobs. He wanted it to be real So. Damn. Badly. "You're dead Stefan! I saw you die!" he cried out. He pushed him away, not wanting to face the next moments when his brother would fade away like Elena did before.

"No Stefan! You are all dead! I just want to be with you all. Leave me alone!" He felt more tears slipping down his cheeks. His brothers image was shaking his head. Damon grabbed the stake back in his hand and moved to slam it into his chest!

But the next second it wasn't even in his hand and he saw Stefan had snatched it from him and hurled it across the room to shatter into pieces against his wall.

"NO! Damon I am right here! Elijah gave me Klaus' blood in time. I am really here. No werewolf bite. No poison. You are not hallucinating!" He turned his arm and Damon could see where the bite had ravaged his skin and now there was nothing but smooth flesh.

"Elena is alive too! Elijah gave her an injection to slow her heartbeat to look like she was dead." Stefan was shaking him again. "Klaus needed to believe she was dead so you could escape with her."

Damon's mind was struggling to process all he was hearing and seeing. "She's alive?" he breathed out and Stefan nodded, his lips curling up into a smile.

"Yes brother. She is." He saw Stefan looking around his room with more worry in his eyes.

Could he dare to believe it was true? He looked down at Elena and crawled on his knees toward her. His hand was shaking as he slowly moved to touch her cheek. It was still cold, like death. How was she alive?

Damon laid his head to her chest. Her shirt he had put on her back at the cave where they made love was soaking wet and covered in blood. How did Stefan know she was alive? It ripped him apart to see her like this.

He pulled her into his arms, her head falling back off his arm. She looked just like he had seen her before he attacked Klaus.

His brother sat down beside them on the bed. "It's just the drug...Elijah said she will wake up soon. He gave her an antidote back at the lake already Damon. Trust me I am as in shock about this too and can't believe I am here talking to you."

Damon's eyes were locked on his brother, alive and talking and moving around like he had never been bitten. It did not feel like it was real. But she was in his arms. His Elena was going to be okay! He trusted Stefan and let it in, the relief that she was not leaving him. He trusted Elijah too and everything Stefan said made sense.

"Our babies?" he choked out and felt his body shaking in the fear that they were gone. His head moved to her belly, as he moved her to slide off his lap to lay beside him as he scooted lower. "My angels..." He couldn't hear any heartbeats. Damon looked up at Stefan through his tears, his lip quivering.

"They didn't make it? When she drowned?" he whispered. But Stefan shook his head and laid his hand on her stomach, beside where Damon's head had been.

"No brother. I can feel them. They are alive. The beats are just so so faint. Elena's heart too. Your family is alive Damon. All of us."

Stefan was beaming widely through tears of his own before his smile dropped as Damon let out a pain filled cry, leaned over the side of the bed and threw up more blood.

Damon felt searing heat radiant through his chest and blood pushed its way up his throat more and more. In his shock of seeing them there he hadn't even felt any pain, like it was numb. But now he felt it stronger, the pressure building as was laying so still daring to believe what Stefan had just said. He cried out and turned his head to the floor and gagged and threw up again.

His vision swam and he saw Stefan in front of him, kneeling on the floor at the side of his bed. His brother was alive, Elena was laying right beside him and he was being told that she would wake up. But now he felt things fading more and more, his eyelids too heavy.

Stefan was shaking him again. "Damon! Damon...where did you put the cure. Klaus' blood?"

Damon squinted as things started to go black. The cure? He didn't have the cure.

"Damon! I gave it..."

But he fell into the blackness calling out to him, as he turned away from his brother like in slow motion... to seek out Elena again. He felt his head fall to land of the skin of her belly again, his arms pulling her closer as his eyes rolled back in his head.

They were alive were his last thoughts as the darkness consumed him. She was going to wake up. But he was dying...

* * *

 **There is a lot of action and excitement and romance to come. Lots of questions answered and spells revealed and plots to explore.**

 **This Damon is more emotional and in touch with his feeling than canon Damon might have been at this stage in the show being only mid season 2. But from everything that has happened and all he has faced through all 3 books so far, lots of emotion has been bubbling to the surface.**

 **Have a safe and relaxing weekend.**


	2. Crawling Back to You

**A/N; Thank you for the reviews follows and favorites. I am glad people are still interested in seeing this series to completion.**

 **Happy reading!**

* * *

Ocean blue eyes slowly opened. The effort of coming back from the peaceful, quiet darkness that had swallowed him whole was exhausting. His eyelids felt so heavy, closing him off away from the frantic pace of where he was. He didn't even know that really. It felt like they were moving.

Damon had been going in and out of consciousness and vaguely remembered the sounds of sirens and his brother yelling and then blurring away from him. The next time he forced his eyes open, just for a second he saw his Elena in Stefan's arms beside him, wrapped in his jacket. He tried to lift his arm, to reach out to her, but it felt like a chasm miles wide was between them. He could not even lift a finger, let alone a hand to bring her closer or bring himself closer to her.

Stefan must have seen his struggle, his need for her and before his eyes fell shut again his brother had moved to kneel on the floor right beside him and he felt a hand in his open palm. Stefan smiled at him, squeezing his hand in his, looking like tears would flow any second but he held them back.

Damon heard his name being called, first loudly and then fading more till he had to strain to hear it. He focused so hard, gritting his teeth just to open his eyes again and saw Stefan stand back to his feet, still cradling Elena against his chest.

"Elena...baby," he whimpered and lifted his hand to reach out again. To his surprise his weak muscles cooperated with him and he felt her head above his shaky palm. He let out a weak cry, his chin quivering as he felt her damp but so so soft brunette locks tangling around his bloody hand. His eyes were falling closed again as his fingers lost their grip, his arm falling back down to his side.

He saw what looked like a paramedic leaning over him and heard his brother yelling again but he could barely make out what he was saying.

"Damon! Damon!" Stefan's voice faded with all the other sounds. "Don't give up brother! Fight!"

He heard him but everything felt so soothing in the darkness. He felt waves of calmness as his heart and mind still felt anything but calm. His mind told him he wanted to get up. He wanted to hold her. Damon wanted to feel strength in his body and protect her. She needed him and he could not just succumb to death. He had to fight.

He would only close his eyes for a moment, blocking out the man rushing around him, hooking him up to machines and poking his pale blackened and poisoned skin with needles as the sirens were still echoing in his ears. He just needed a minute to block it all out and then he would fight with everything he had left in him.

Just a minute…

* * *

Damon woke up to the loud sound of a steady, beeping beside him. The sound slowed and sped up and without opening his eyes he realized it was his own heartbeat. He was a vampire and his heart did beat unnaturally slowly, but it still did beat. He was alive, somehow and had pulled himself back from his desire to let go and let death take him.

Death for a vampire would usually be quick and painful. The sharp stake tearing through flesh with precision and strength. This feeling of death he had was nothing like he had imagined. This was quiet and calm, like waves crashing on the surf and slowly pulling the water back from the shore. In his weakness he had welcomed it, even with his inner voice screaming at him to resist. Elena was still alive and would need him when she woke. He had to fight.

Damon felt more strength as he opened his eyes. He felt a warmth in his veins. It was combating the coldness of death, of how he knew her skin felt when he had touched her.

Moving his head he lifted his chin to peer through his lashes at the rich dark thickness that only came from human blood. It fell a drop at a time from the IV bag, down into the tube and winding down till it reached his open vein. More and more of the delicious blood flooded his body.

He turned the other way, the pillow crinkling beneath him to see a blonde head down against the side of the bed, its face hidden. Damon knew it had to be Stefan. He ran his tongue along his dry lips and opened his mouth.

"Hello...brother," he choked out and Stefan's head flew up fast. The relief was all over his face as Damon took in the tired eyes of his baby brother.

"Damon, thank God you came back! The doctors didn't know what to do and you crashed multiple times in the ambulance on the way here. I even forced one the paramedics to give you his wrist to feed you and by then you still didn't wake up!" Stefan's eyes were wide, the lines on his face etched with worry. He squeezed his shoulder and looked like he had been run over by a bus with all they had been though the last few days.

"You look like shit, brother," Damon gasped out and chuckled. But the burning in his throat caused him to fall into a coughing fit till he felt more blood at his lips. Stefan grabbed a garbage pail from the floor and held it under his head as Damon pulled himself to sitting, gagging and puking more.

He was reminded of watching this exact scene after Stefan told them he was dying and had been poisoned. His brothers fingers had been white as he clutched so hard on the edge of the pail while his body convulsed with more and more pain.

Elena had been there to console him. She had crawled across the bed out of his arms to comfort Stefan and hold him. Damon had fallen in love with her all over again watching her caring for his brother.

* * *

 _She turned in Damon's arms and looking into his eyes and pressed a kiss to his lips._

 _He knew what she was saying and he was okay. He had to be. "Go Baby, It's okay. I trust you." She smiled at him and he knew he had done the right thing letting her go to his brother._

 _Elena climbed out of his lap to crawl down the bed further and held Stefan's head in her hands as he gagged and retched more. There wasn't even anything left it looked like, in his stomach to throw up._

 _She knelt on the bed stroking his back and hair. "I'm here Stefan. You don't have to go through this alone."_

 _Stefan looked up at her, his eyes bloodshot and the tear tracks still wet on his face. He leaned his head against her hand and closed his eyes. "I've been so alone. I thought I could get through this by myself. I just did not want you hurting anymore Elena. I wanted to spare you the pain of losing me."_

 _He grabbed harder around the garbage can, his knuckles white, as more blood came up his throat. He coughed then wiped his bloody lips on his discarded hoodie as he pushed the can away from him._

 _Damon took it and put it back on the ground and watched his brother. He had so much emotion in him right then too. So much he wanted to say to him before he was gone from them forever. He watched Stefan lay his head in Elena's lap and her stroking his hair and his face tenderly._

 _God, if that image did not make him love her more._

 _She looked up in his eyes and smiled through her tears at him. "I love you," she mouthed to him and he smiled back and mouthed it back._

 _They would be okay. He trusted her and in her love._

 _Damon reached out to her, running his finger over her lips and watched her eyes flutter closed in reaction to his touch. Her one hand was still running through Stefan's hair as his breathing became deeper and he fell asleep in her lap._

 _He needed to find a cure. There must be a cure to a werewolf bite. He could not just sit back and let his brother die without a fight. There had to be an answer somewhere. He looked back up to her eyes once more. She was so sad, and this looked to be too much for her to take._

 _He moved closer to her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and kissing her hair. He snuggled up tight behind her as she comforted Stefan. He would find a way for his brother to beat this. He had to._

* * *

Damon needed her now like she had been with Stefan. He was sweating and breathing hard and fast and felt more blood in his throat. He needed her to hold him like she had held his brother. He wanted to lay his head on her chest, feel her warmth and her fingers tunneling into his hair. Stefan had said he wanted to fight through this alone and not tell her. He didn't want to bring her more pain and loss. Have another grave to mourn by.

But he was in the exact same place as Stefan had been and he was forced to face it without her. It felt so cruel that the universe was denying him the one comfort he so desperately craved when he was in so much pain and so weak.

Right now he couldn't even see her anywhere as he lay looking at his brothers worried face. Stefan wasn't holding her like before.

"Elena?" he whispered, his lips still so dry, his skin rubbing him like sandpaper.

"She's here Damon. Its okay." Stefan looked past him to the other side of the room. "She's still not awake and I've been trying to call Elijah for an hour now with no response."

Damon dragged his head the way Stefan was looking and he felt his heart skip a beat as he saw her laying on the bed beside him. She still looked so pale and so much like the death he felt was trying to pull him away from everyone he held dear.

Stefan grabbed his head pulling his eyes away from her and back to him. "Damon we need to focus on you. You need that cure or even if she wakes up a few hours from now...it will be too late for you. Blood will only help keep regenerating your organs for a while and then nothing else helps. I should know brother. I felt everything single thing you are feeling right now."

Damon nodded slowly to him knowing he was right. They needed to focus on him. Or it would not make any difference when she woke up if he had died. But his mind wasn't on himself at all and he was already turning his head back toward her, reaching with his weak and bloody arm out to her.

Stefan mumbled something incoherently, stood up and crossed the floor quickly. Within seconds had picked her up and was back at the side of Damon's bed. The elder vampire pulled his broken body over as far to the side of the bed against the rail as he could and his brother laid Damon's beautiful girl in his outstretched arms.

Her head was resting gently against Damon's and the raven haired vampire let out a whimper of relief. He could hear his own heartbeat quicken on the monitor at her nearness. He needed her closer like this. He could not think straight with the poison sucking him up from the inside out. Her presence soothed him and he was so thankful Stefan had brought her to him.

* * *

 _Damon stood back up knowing that he needed to check on Elena, but he also wanted to stay with Stefan. If Klaus was actually getting set up to burn the place down then they all might not have much time left together. He clasped his brother's head in his hands looking sadly in his eyes. "I'll be right back."_

 _And he stepped down the hall toward the living room. Elena was still laying peacefully on the couch and he saw that Elijah must have brought Jeremy somewhere else cause he could not see either of them anywhere. Damon bent to scoop Elena back up and carried her with him back to the bedroom where he had left Stefan._

 _He had no idea if this would be really awkward for his brother, but he just could not bear to leave either of them right now. He smiled at Stefan as he stepped back through the door and he saw his brother already dragging himself over on the bed for Damon to sit down. He sunk down in the mattress, leaning his head on the headboard, with Elena unconscious in his lap, his legs crossed at the ankles, his black boots rubbing together as he got comfortable. He pulled up one of the blankets around her and just held her in his arms as he sat beside his dying brother. Neither of them spoke but knew what the other needed right then and both offered the deepest respect to those needs._

 _Stefan smiled at him seeing Elena looking so serene in sleep. He coughed some more and looked back up at Damon. "You_ _ _are__ _taking care of me. You are taking care of both of us, all of us. Believe me, Damon. It means so much for me to have you here. For us not to be fighting or jealous or angry at each other."_

* * *

That was how he had been there for both of them back in the cabin. Before all hell broke loose and he almost lost them. Damon nuzzled her head and caressed her cheek. He instantly slipped his hand under her shirt on her belly, hoping, looking to feel his babies. He softly kissed the crown of her head and bit back tears as there was no fluttering that he could feel under his palm. He was too weak, his vampire hearing not working at all anymore.

After a few moments of breathing her in, however smoke filled and bloody her clothes and hair were, he could feel the pain fading and the calmness grow. He fought the tears wanting to slip down his cheeks and focused on the soothing feeling of her in his arms. The calm he felt from her was so much difference than how death was pulling at him. She was pain relief all on her own, doing nothing but just being there.

"Okay Damon," Stefan spoke up in the silence of the room, kneeling from the chair toward them. "I need you to think now please. I've been calling Jeremy over and over since we got here and no answer. He was the one I passed the cure too once I had gotten it after the cabin exploded and you had taken so many stakes to the back that you fell in the water off the dock."

"Think Damon please. I was going in and out of consciousness then and I don't remember what happened after I gave him the cure. I could have used it to cure me but I knew you had been poisoned too and you needed to live far more than I did. You had just asked Elena to marry you and your babies were counting on you."

Damon was nodding remembering everything that happened, the horror of thinking she had died in the cabin, crashing through the window to save her, almost not making it out before the roof fell in behind them. She had been gasping in his arms, having inhaled far too much smoke and starting coughing up blood. She was fading fast and Klaus was advancing on them as he backed them up onto the dock with nowhere else to go.

But then the cabin exploded and he sunk under the water. He remembered Klaus leaving the vial of blood on the ground at the edge of the dock. He had been so busy spinning her around to shield her with his own body as all the stakes soared toward them. Everything was like right out of a nightmare and yet he had survived at least so far. So where the hell was that vial?

"Damon? Hey stay awake brother, please. You can't fall back asleep."

Stefan was calling again and he jerked himself back from his thoughts. "He never gave it to me. Although so much was happening but to not remember something that monumental brother...no I think Jeremy must still have it." He felt more strength from the blood and was surprised he was able to think so clearly and reply too.

Damon furrowed his brow, still trying to figure it out. His hand never left her belly hoping by some miracle he would be able to feel them, even for a second. "Where is Jer anyway?" he queried.

Stefan sat back in the chair, his head falling into his hands before he ran them through his hair, pulling on it in frustration. "Gone. I questioned the nurses and doctors here and found out he brought Bonnie in a few hours ago. She has a severe concussion and was at risk for a brain bleed since she hit her head again so soon before recovering from the first time. Its bad Damon. They don't know if she will last the night."

Damon curled closer to Elena hearing what had happened to Bonnie. She had been trying to save them from Klaus. He had been trapped in his car and almost didn't make it out when Klaus lit the gasoline on fire. But Elena had told him later that Bonnie had been thrown against a tree from Klaus' supernatural strength pushing back at her. They both had gone flying back and now he was hearing that she had hit her head again? Was it when the cabin exploded?

Stefan had been dialing and holding his phone to his ear a couple times since Damon woke up and each time he seemed to curse before hanging up and trying again. "Damn it Jer! Pick up!" Stefan snarled out and dialed again.

Damon was feeling the blood replenishing his strength but with each breath he took he felt more strength fading. He probably didn't have long left if they didn't get that cure.

"About Bonnie, couldn't you just feed her your blood Stef?" He thought that was a clear solution even if his senses and body was failing him, his mind was still somewhat sharp.

Stefan shook his head. "She doesn't want blood Damon. Trust me I tried but Tyler was there and he said Jeremy told him to not let anyone near her with vampire blood. She doesn't want to risk coming back like us, and him after everything. She told Jer she would rather die than lose her connection to the earth as a witch. Tyler said Jer wanted to feed her his blood too but he wanted to honor her choice as hard as it is on both of them."

Wow that sounded bad. She sounded like she could die either way. Damon knew how much Elena cared about Bonnie and once she woke up he was already dreading telling her what happened to Caroline. But Bonnie too? How much could his precious girl take?

He started coughing again and felt the sweat dripping down his cheek. He couldn't die. Not after knowing she was still alive and his babies too. He could not leave them. After everything they had been through she could not wake up to find him dead. He had no idea how she would survive that. He had wanted to kill himself knowing they were all gone. He would _not_ put her through that.

He pull her body in closer to him and closed his eyes to try to think, his hand still on her bare stomach. He was seeking out her scent again and moaned almost silently when it permeated his weak senses. There had to be something they could do...for Bonnie or him. Where did Jeremy go that it was more important than being with her if she might be dying?

Just then the phone in Stefan's hand rung loudly. He answered it instantly pressing it to his ear when Damon thought to himself that with his super hearing he would have been able to hear the call from across the room.

Stefan stood up fast. "Jeremy?" There was a long pause before he saw his brothers shoulders sink down and his head fall back. "Oh my God what took you so long to answer me?!"

Another pause. "No service? Well Damon is dying and we need to get the cure I had given you! You remember?" Stefan had started pacing now as he talked and Damon just lifted his head and nuzzled his nose between the strands of Elena's hair at the crook of her neck. He wished he could hear Jeremy too but his vamp senses were far too weak as his body was breaking down.

"His jacket?" Stefan blurred across the room in a blink of an eye and stopped right at the bed Elena had been in. Damon watched him pick up his jacket and frantically search through it, checking every pocket before tossing it back on the empty bed.

Stefan yanked the phone back to his ear. "Its not there Jeremy. Mmm hmmm nope. I checked every pocket. You positive you put it in his jacket? Damon's leather jacket? It was laying on the ground by the dock?"

There was another pause as Damon could tell Jer was replying. Stefan was pacing again long big strides across the room and back. "Well where would it have fallen out? I need to check our whole route all the way back to the fucking Lake house?!"

Whoa baby brother was pissed but he didn't blame him. Damon himself had practically strangled Caroline in his own anger that Klaus was coming after Elena to sacrifice her. He would have murdered Katherine if he had been given half a chance at her for everything she had done to them. Katherine had literally ripped Elena out of his arms and thrown her from the protection of the cabin to Klaus when Damon had been compelled. She just wanted to earn herself fucking brownie points for Klaus to heal her too.

There was a quiet rap on the outside of the door and Damon saw Stefan turn fast and race to open the door, pulling the person inside. He slammed it shut and turned back to him and Elena.

Stefan dragged Ric toward the bed till he was standing in front of them. He looked as surprised as Damon felt at him being there. He pulled open his jacket showing them a crossbow before tossing a big bag likely full of more weapons on the floor by the wall.

"I brought some back up brother." Stefan sounded strong and determined. He had almost died himself of the werewolf poison and here he was strapping on the hero hair and doing everything to save Damon from the same fate.

"Ric will keep you and Elena safe while I go and search for the damn vial. I will find it Damon, if its the last thing I do." Stefan pulled him in for a hug, his one arm around Damon's neck before pulling back and nodding firmly.

Damon smiled weakly nodding back at him. "I know you will Stef. I know."

Stefan turned back to Ric. "Don't let anyone else in here except the doctors and nurses. I compelled the on call staff for this ward to give you whatever you need. You are their boss Ric. Do whatever you have to, to keep my brother alive. Jeremy is looking for Bonnie's cousin, the witch Lucy and hoping she can help her and maybe Elena too. But I will be right back...with the cure."

Ric nodded. "I don't pretend to know all the crap you guys have been through these last few days. I've been lying to Jenna about where you have been and shes getting really worried about Elena and Jeremy. But she trusts me but I need to get back there soon or she will start getting stir crazy again and making more calls looking for them."

Ric continued while looking down at Elena and Damon. "She wouldn't be able to handle this. At least not all at once. We need Elena to wake up first to be there with Jenna when you guys somehow tell her her nephew is a vampire and her niece is pregnant with a vampires twin babies."

Ric shot Damon a really confused look and pulled a bottle from his bag. "Maybe drinking more will help this make more sense. You game Damon? Might help numb the pain and get your mind off it."

Stefan took one more look at them and blurred out of the door. He had his mission and Ric had his.

Ric sat down on the chair beside the bed and Damon saw him straining to open the bottle. He chuckled at him knowing he had no strength either to help but watched as Ric finally twisted it open and poured some in a glass on the nightstand by his bed.

Ric passed Damon the glass and he took it in his weak grasp but held on enough to get it to his lips. The bourbon felt so good going down his bloody weak throat. They didn't say anything as Ric poured him another shot in the glass and passed it back to him. Damon took the glass again but this time felt an insane bursting of pain in his chest and stomach that it slipped from his fingers to crash to the floor. It shattered on contact, spraying glass in all directions.

Damon's head fell back as he tried to open his mouth. "Sorry...Ric…" he managed to choke out. He heard his heart racing on the monitors. It felt like his insides were melting. Damon curled his body tighter, his knees up to his chest. Elena was still laying motionless beside him.

"Damon! Hey Damon!" Ric had stood up fast and was calling him before he started shaking and sweating more. The pain was so bad and he just wanted it to end.

"The blood….isn't helping," Damon gasped out, his head snapping up before falling back to the pillows beneath him. "Nothing is..."

He vaguely saw Ric move closer and shake him as his eyes started closing again. Ric was pushing his wrist against Damon's mouth but he didn't even have the strength to bite into it. He saw Ric looking around likely for something to pierce his skin. He must have found something in a drawer and raked a gash along his wrist and forced it back to Damon's mouth...but nothing was working. He wasn't even swallowing.

"Damon stay with me. Fight for Elena...Fight for..." There was a long pause. "Your babies." Ric finally said but they withdrew his bloody wrist and disappeared from view. Damon heard him yelling for help and a nurse was there almost immediately.

Damon could not hear what his friend was saying at all now as he felt more blood in his throat, his insides searing and he focused his last few moments that his eyes were open on Elena's peacefully sleeping figure beside him. He reached out to her, his hand on her head. He wanted to disappear into a dream with her. He wanted their last moments to be together, even if it was in her head.

But he cried out that he didn't have the strength, tears running down his cheeks. He couldn't hold a dream world together, not now. He couldn't even feel his babies. Damon buried his head against her neck, nuzzling in under her hair, his arms pulling her closer as he felt more tears slipping down his face. "I'm so sorry baby," he whispered his voice even so very weak. "I can't hold on anymore...there is no more strength left to fight."

His eyes fell closed just as Ric was back at his side yelling at him but it was getting fainter and fainter. The darkness was closing in as a loud long monotone beep echoed...

* * *

Stefan was running as fast as his body could toward the boarding house. He knew Damon didn't have long left. He had to hurry. He had been praying the whole way there that it was there and not halfway back to the Lake house. He could not lose him.

Damon had so much to live for. He had finally gotten everything he ever dreamed. He was going to be a father, something neither of them ever thought was possible after they had turned. There was no way he was letting those babies grow up without their dad. His brother would make an amazing dad. Elena was going to wake up...she had too and she would be looking for Damon the second she awoke. He had to save them or he didn't know how he could live with himself.

Elijah saved him and found a way to give him Klaus' blood. He had been sure he was dead and was surprisingly at peace with it when he had been getting steadily worse in the cabin. But he knew Damon had Elena and they loved each other so deeply. He was a fool to have ever kept them apart for so long already. When he knew they had each other and their children miraculously conceived, he knew he was at peace with his own death. Damon would have love and family and be the most incredible husband and father.

But now through some twist of fate, he was allowed to live and his brother and her were being torn apart forever...unless he could find that damn vial.

Stefan blurred through the open door and up the stairs to Damon's room. He had never run that fast in his life. He started searching the bed, the sheets, and lifted and shook everything out. Where was it?

He fell to his knees and started scanning the rug and putting his hand under the bed. His pinky felt a smooth cylinder and he lay flat on the floor to spin it closer with his finger till it rolled back out from under the bed. Stefan lifted it in his palm to the light of the window.

It was the vial! Thick, dark, red blood was swirling around in the glass container. He breathed a sigh of relief and tucked it deep in the pocket of his bloody damp jeans. The next second the phone was to his ear and he hit speed dial.

"Ric! I've got it! Yes I will be right there. Just get Damon to hold on. I'm coming with the cure!" And he slammed the phone closed and blurred back out of the boarding house.

* * *

Ric hung up after Stefan had not even given him a chance to say anything and was already calling to Damon that Stefan was coming. He had to hear him. But he didn't know if he could at all. The woman he rushed into the room had raced back out and then she was back, dragging a table with the big machine on it.

Ric was frantic that after everything it could be too late. Damon wasn't moving, his eyes were closed and his heart on the monitor had flat-lined barely a few seconds ago. The next moment more nurses and doctors burst in the room with the crash cart and Ric stepped back. He watched them lay Damon flat on his back and one of them started lifting Elena out of his arms.

Ric raced around them and yanked the other bed right up against his and instructed the man to put her down there but still close enough so she was right beside Damon. The woman was frantically working getting the machine on and preparing the wand.

"Charging" someone called out and there was a loud whining sound. They ripped his light blue gown down off his chest and placed the paddles. "Clear!"

Ric watched as Damon's body jumped with the jolt to his heart, but his eyes remained close, the flat-line beep echoing in the background.

They were giving him CPR and bagging him as the machine charged up again.

"C'mon Damon..." Ric mumbled, his own hands white knuckled on the bed rail.

"Clear!" And again Damon's body jolted up, his hair falling in his eyes, his eyes closed, his face so pale.

The machine charged again. Ric was frantic knowing Stefan could be here any moment but it might already be too late. "Damn it!"

He turned to the woman kneeling beside Elena. "Have you found it yet?!" The woman shook her head but the next second the sound echoed around the room. "Turn it up, all the way." Ric looked back at Damon. "C'mon buddy come back. You need to come back…"

* * *

Damon felt like he was sinking, falling. The soothing calm he felt whenever he was near Elena was so different than this. This feeling was pulling him deeper, further into the darkness. He wanted to let go. He was so weak. He had nothing left in him to fight. He even had his hand on her belly under her shirt almost the whole time he had held her and felt nothing. No heartbeats. He needed to feel them alive. He was cursing his destroyed vampires senses.

He suddenly felt her gone from his arms but he had no strength to reach for her. His eyes refused to open and he felt the darkness wrapping itself more and more around him. "Elena!" he called out in his head. Where was she?

But he heard nothing back. It was too late. He could feel the cold, the fingers of death clenched around his heart and starting to squeeze. He barely felt his heart jump, his whole body spasming as they must be fighting to pull him back. But he was trapped.

After the second jolt he wondered if they had given up. No matter how much he wanted to come back, his body felt like it was already gone...all that was left was his conscious mind, still alert but fading fast too.

Then he heard it. The loud sound echoing in the darkness, piercing through the shroud, the veil between life and death it seemed.

The sound was fast, racing heartbeats almost on top of one another. The beats steady and strong.

His babies! He could hear them! They were alive in her! Elena was alive! He could hear her rhythmic strong but slower heart too somehow and he started fighting, untangling himself from the tentacles of death wrapped around his body.

"Elena!" he screamed out and fought to push himself back up to the light. It was so faint above him and he could barely see it as a speck in the dark wide expanse of nothing around him. The beats called to him. He could hear his children alive!

Damon screamed a raw, animalistic scream as he pushed himself up and through narrow strip of light above him. It took every ounce of strength he had, his muscles taunt and feeling like they were tearing in his fight.

* * *

Finally the light flooded into him as he opened his eyes. The doctors and nurses around him let out sighs of relief and smiles down at him. He could hear the steady beating of his own heart on the monitor before it blended with the rapid beats of his babies.

He dragged his head toward the sound, seeing her laying on the bed just beside him. A nurse had the ultrasound wand on her belly, moving it around more and he focused his eyes on the monitor she was looking so intently at.

There on the screen were two tiny sacks, with the little flutters pounding furiously in time with the echoing heartbeat sounds that could be heard all over the room. He stared in absolute awe at his babies. His vision was fading and going clear again but they were there, alive and safe in their mothers belly.

Damon had heard Ric calling his name and when he turned to him he could see relief spread across his tired features as he wrapped his wrist in a gauze. He just nodded to the human vampire hunter that had become somewhat of a friend to him. Ric had saved his life. His quick thinking of what Damon needed to stay alive had indeed worked.

Stefan burst through the door a second later and rushed up to the bed and without wasting a second, tipped the open vial up to his brothers lips and Damon swallowed every last drop.

Ric was closing the door behind the hospital Code Blue staff as they left and turned back to see Stefan collapse into the chair beside his brothers bed. The nurse had turned off the loud sounds of the heartbeats at Rics instruction before leaving as him and Stefan waited anxiously in the silent room.

Damon felt the blood the second the thick liquid hit his tongue. He opened his eyes wider and tilted his head to his poisoned arm. He tore the thin blue gown off his body and watched mesmerized as the dark black lines faded down his arm to disappear. The torn apart skin slowly molded back to smooth flawless flesh and all that covered it was a light film of blood.

He gulped in the fresh air, feeling his lungs strengthen and his heart beat faster too. Damon sat up, ripping the IV from his arm, his long legs swinging over the side of the bed. He was wearing light blue scrub style pants. Looking around the room, he moved his head with ease, feeling strength in all his muscles. He leaned back and slipped his arms under Elena's back and legs, pulling her across the beds and into his arms. Her head fell back against his bare chest and he rocked her in his arms as he stared out in absolute wonder at his brother and Ric watching him.

Damon smiled back at Stefan and they shared a look of sheer amazement and relief.

He was cured.

He had almost died, not having the strength to hold on and Ric had brought him back, the sound of his babies had brought him back and he could not be more grateful.

Now they needed to focus on Elena and why she wasn't waking up. She was so clearly alive and seemed to be in a supernatural coma. Damon felt his strength returning, his vampire sight and hearing, his muscles flexed in his chest as he held her against him and now he could enter her mind and help her know what was happening. Be with her in at least some way till they could figure this mystery out.

Damon moved his palm under her shirt again and nearly cried out in happiness as he could feel his babies again! It took much more concentration and just like Stefan said the beats were so faint but they were there.

He looked back up to his brother while cradling her in his arms. "Well Stef. Now can we focus on Elena and my babies?"

Stefan smiled and nodded slowly. Damon saw the pure joy on his face that he had saved him. Maybe all that had torn them apart as brothers in the tomb, all the misunderstandings and the pain and lies...maybe it could all be water under the bridge in their relationship. Stefan had accepted him and Elena together and in love and had said how sorry he was about everything.

They needed each other to bring her and his children back. They had grown from everything they had been through and it had made them stronger as brothers, not torn them further apart. They had found their way though the mess the wolf, Katherine and even Klaus made to destroy them and came out the other side more bonded than ever.

"So Stef...I'm helping you...helping you find Elijah so we can bring Elena back."

Ric was smiling and nodding himself and packed up his stuff and said a hasty goodbye. He needed to go back to Jenna and keep her in the dark just a little longer.

Damon held Elena tight as Stefan again dialed Elijah's number. He hadn't picked up the dozens of times he had called before, but somehow they had to reach him. He was the one who faked her death so he damn well better have answer for why she wasn't waking up.

* * *

 **A/N: Please take a minute to send a review. They inspire the muse!**

 **Damon will give Elena a dream in the next chapter, much like the one in book 2 and they will be able to talk and touch and comfort each other as he tries to sooth her fears in not knowing what is happening. They will get to the bottom of why she isn't waking up.**

 **Enjoy your night!**


	3. I'm So Alone!

Water streamed down his lean and muscled body. It felt nice to feel its warmth when everything for so long had been cold like death. As a vampire his skin was already somewhat cool but he hadn't felt cold to that degree before in his life. The chill of death circling and pulling him under felt like ice in his veins even when his body had been burning up. The water now falling down from the shower head felt hot even as he lifted his face to the spray, shaking his dark hair back and forth.

Damon closed his eyes and let the water bounce off his face, run down his cheeks and jaw to slide down his neck. Thousands of the tiny droplets were slipping down his body, reviving him, refreshing him back to life.

It felt amazing to wash all the blood off. Even dust, dirt and soot from the fire had been sticking to his sweaty body. He had told Stefan he looked like hell when he himself hadn't looked in a mirror to see how much he had been through too.

Crystal blue eyes widened in shock and he had nearly jerked back at seeing his own reflection when he had moved to the bathroom to simply wash his face a few minutes ago. So he had popped his head back out and quickly told Stefan to watch over Elena. He would be right back after taking a shower. He thought Stefan could use one too but right now his brother was still focused on finding Elijah.

Damon watched the blood slide down his body, washing it off his arms and chest, giving way to the pale flawless skin underneath again. Most of the blood he had lost before when Klaus finally caught him in the woods.

 _Damon felt pain, SO much pain just tearing through his stomach and he dared to look down to see a thick, sharp tree branch all the way impaled through his back and sticking out his stomach! He shook his head from where it had hit the tree behind him and refocused his eyes in front of him._

 _He saw boots. Dark, black boots just a few feet in front of his and his eyes followed the boots up the body to the black trench coat and dark jeans and Damon let out a gasp before he even saw his face, knowing full well who it was._

 _"Klaus," he choked out with a raise of his eyebrows at him, fighting through the insane stabbing from the wood, wondering if in the next second he would be dead. His desire to live and to get that damn cure from him was stronger than his fear of him. But he had no strength to pull the damn branch out of his stomach. He felt so dizzy too from slamming his head on the tree, feeling another wound on his head drip blood down his forehead and slide past his ear. "Fancy meeting you here," he drawled, trying to sound casual._

 _Klaus walked slowly up to the blanket that had fallen out of Damon's arms and lifted up the corner revealing the pillows that started spilling out onto the ground. Damon just leaned his head back tasting his own blood at his lips and laughed through what felt like needles in his gut all over._

 _"She is not here dick," he smirked at him as his head pounded, the pain in his stomach ripped through him over and over, almost as bad as vervain. He bent his head, his eyes on his enemies. "And you are never getting your fucking hands on her! Not while I am still breathing." His eyes were yellow with rage, just wishing he had the strength to get up._

 _Damon tried to pulled on the branch through his body as his eyes were squeezed shut from the pain till he felt something heavy on his leg and opened his eyes to see Klaus' boot pushing him back deeper onto the branch. "Ahh," he screamed out gritting his teeth and glaring up at the vampire holding his life in his hands._

 _Klaus knelt down eye level to him. "Well you not breathing, could be arranged Damon," he hissed at him, holding up another sharp branch and raking it across his artery, letting the blood spill down his body before it healed. "Tell me where she is."_

 _Damon laughed again and smirked back at him. "You think I am stupid? That I would_ _ _actually__ _tell you that?" He scoffed at him and grunted in more torment as Klaus pushed the branch back more into the skin of his neck, drawing more blood out. "Your vampires, hell your witch bitch tried to get to her and they lost. I will never let you have her! I will kill anyone that tries to hurt her!"_

Klaus had tortured him to find out where Elena had been hiding. He had even thought Damon could be compelled and Damon had faked it and laughed in the Original's face at tricking him. It only served to make Klaus angrier and he had left Damon like that, impaled on the tree branch, unable to get free and to his horror had given him an injection to speed up the werewolf toxins ravaging effects in his body.

All Klaus had wanted was to get both brothers out of the way so Elena could be free to choose for herself to come with him, he had said. He had sworn over and over that he would not hurt her or their babies. But Damon didn't trust him and was determined to keep his family hidden from him.

Elena hadn't chosen at all and if she had she would have raced out and given herself up to save Damon more than once since Klaus trapped them there. Stefan had held her back as she had screamed and cried for Damon as Klaus had plunged his hand in Damon's back and gripped his heart, back at the cabin. He had never seen her more scared in that moment.

 _Klaus growled and banged on the invisible door. "You think you have won,_ _ _Elena__ _." His voice dripped of contempt and anger. She gasped and watched him spin on his heel and stalk slowly toward Damon. He laughed at her as he dragged Damon on his knees to the door. "Invite me in...now...or I'll kill him."_

 _His eyes were wide with rage and he was done playing with them. He had her and now damn them she was behind the magic barrier again! He looked back at her from behind his dark lashes and hissed. "Don't test me little girl. You know I will."_

 _Damon could hardly hold his head up and he felt Klaus keeping him on his knees just by his grip on the back of his neck...He could see Elena first looking at her friend in shock and then back at him... wanting to go to him; her eyes so conflicted and so wide with fear. "Don't you dare, angel!" He gasped out to her, shaking his wet hair back and forth in an emphatic no._

 _"Oh yes... do dare,_ _ _angel.__ _" Klaus mocked Damon watching his head hanging down, blood dripping from his mouth. He plunged his hand back in the hole in the back of Damon's shirt, grabbed his heart again and Damon cried out, feeling the blood pouring into his mouth. He gagged and gasped trying to breath as Klaus held so tight to his heart that no blood pumped at all._

 _Elena screamed and launched herself at the door. Stefan grabbed her around her waist or she would have been right out there that instant. "No! Damon! No!" she whimpered as her eyes flooded with tears. "Let him go!" she screamed frantically at the wicked vampire._

 _Klaus squeezed harder and Damon's body involuntarily jerked in reaction, his arms were just hanging by his sides limply and Elena could see the bulge where his heart was nearly being pushed out the front of his body! The only thing holding him up was Klaus' hand in his chest!_

Damon felt his body jump at the memory. He had been closer to death than ever and all he remembered was the terror in his girls eyes. He shook his head back and forth, wiping the water from his face. He didn't even want to think of that. It was over and they were safe. Klaus had not killed him no matter how hard he had tried. All they needed to concentrate on was Elena and finding out how to wake her.

His hands moved up to run through his hair, spreading the shampoo all over his head and he saw more and more blood slipping down his body to the drain. Damon hadn't showered for almost two days. The last time being with his beautiful girl in there with him just after they made love for the first time...

 _She had kissed him ravenously. He had held her up, his hands gripping her naked thighs as she was pressed against the wall of the shower. Damon could not stop running his hands, his lips, his tongue all over her delicious wet skin. It felt like a dream come true to be with her like that. So close, so intimate._

Damon wiped the water from his eyes again and leaned his head down on the wall of the hospital shower, the water cascading down his muscled back. He felt his breath picking up at just the thought of the memory of her in his arms. She had tilted her head to the side to let him feed on her and he felt himself getting lost in the past, taken in more every second as he thought back to that perfect memory…

 _She wrapped her fingers around his head and pushed it down on her shoulder. He pulled back enough to see her eyes and dared to voice what he was thinking. Was she offering what he thought she was?_

 _"Lanie, are you wanting…"_

 _But she didn't even give him a chance to answer her and she nodded her head rapidly. She lifted her head, giving him more access and he took a deep breath. His undead heart was pounding in excitement at what she was letting him do. He bent his head closer and thrust into her again as he felt his fangs growing and the familiar dark veins pulsing harder._

" _God, Damon," she whimpered as he clutched her hips tight._

 _Damon was in heaven._

 _He sucked slowly and carefully taking only a little of her blood at a time but it still felt like the most erotic thing he had ever experienced. He ran one hand up her back, feeling the blood dripping down it and around his hand as he held her, smearing the blood all over her naked body. He pulled back a second before he felt himself pumping into her._

 _Damon wanted to see her eyes as he filled her. She looked intoxicating and gazed on him with so much love. His lips and hands were covered in her blood and he cupped her breasts and held tight to her thighs and spread her blood all over her smooth, wet body anywhere his hands moved. He heard her whimper and he pulled her mouth back to him as he kissed her deeply._

 _He could never get enough of her..._

His eyes stayed closed, his focus on the image of her in his mind. He missed her so damn much. He missed her warmth, her soft skin, her beautiful chocolate eyes gazing lovingly at him. He missed her smile, her laugh, her moans of pleasure, her whimpers and her nails raking down his back. He wanted to stay hidden with her in his mind, in his memory of watching the pleasure flood her face and her lips part and her body tremble in his arms.

Damon remembered her covered in blood and standing there looking like a vision that he could not believe was real. He had moved back toward her, licking his lips, almost tasting her sweet blood on his tongue before he was close enough to lick a path of it clean from her skin.

 _"Wow, baby. You take my breath away." Damon held her head in his hands, cradling her face, his lower body supporting her still up against the wall. Slowly he lowered her to her feet and felt the water starting to run colder._

 _Damon felt his vampire self creeping onto his face and he hoped it would not scare her. But he wanted to be real with her._

 _He watched her eyes widen as his eyes filled with blood and she just looked back at him calmly. He could hear her heart pounding just a little faster but showed no other signs that she was scared of what he looked like._

 _Instead she untangled one hand from his and ran her fingers down over the dark black veins under his eyes and leaned in closer and closer till she could kiss him where she had just caressed his soft skin. He sucked in a breath feeling her lips on him and grasped her hips in his hands as he felt her tongue running over the pulsing veins._

 _"Who you are...is beautiful Damon. I love all the bad with the good. I'm not scared of you. I trust you more than anything."_

 _His heart soared at her words. Trust, love, wanting him to be happy, pleasing him._

 _Never in his life had someone been so selfless with him._

 _He nodded to her and bent his head. Her wound had stopped bleeding but the blood he had smeared all over her was still there since she had stepped out of the spray of water. The water was so cold already but he barely felt it compared to the heat of her body. He bent lower and licked up her blood along her shoulders and down her chest. She squirmed in his arms as he licked across her breasts and he felt her clutching at his arms as she moaned his name. He loved the sound of his name on her lips._

 _He loved it when she called him Salvatore; all sexy and a nickname just from her._

 _He bent lower kneeling in front of her licking the blood off her belly and turning his head to lap it off of her hips he was clutching tightly in his hands._

Damon could imagine himself on his knees in front of her, the girl he would love forever, as he lifted his head to lock his eyes with hers...

 _She was running her tongue along her bottom lip, before biting it between her teeth as she held his intoxicating gaze. He smiled up at her before clutching her hips tighter and moving his tongue lower and lower, as another shaky whimper came from her parted lips._

A loud sound in the other room jolted him from his enjoyment of reliving that time with her. He lifted his head fast, hearing that it was the phone ringing again before his brother answered it before it rang again.

He turned the water off, after making sure to wash off all the soap from his hair and body and stepped back out. He dried off the best he could with the smallish towels that were there and looked around for what else he could wear. There wasn't much for wardrobe options but it would have to do. He slipped back into the thin blue scrub pants, after putting on a black pair of boxers and tied up the drawstring. He found another blue scrub top, pulling it over his head before coming back out into the main room.

The air hit him with a gust of coolness on his damp skin as he rubbed the towel through his dark and now silky black hair again. Damn, it felt so good to be clean.

Damon was quiet but could hear Stefan talking on the phone to Jeremy, he could make out on the other end of the call. His brother was explaining that they did get the cure to Damon in time. Jeremy he heard clearly sigh with relief before going on to explain that he was on his way back with Bonnie's cousin Lucy.

Stefan told him Elena still hadn't woken up and he had no luck reaching Elijah. Maybe his phone had been damaged. He didn't know but if something happened to him he had no idea how to get Elena to wake up. They needed to know what he had done to her in the first place.

Kneeling by his beautiful girl in the bed, Damon wiped a washcloth over her forehead, cleaning off the mud, and blood stuck to her skin. He saw the smooth olive skin beneath all the blood and continued to wipe the cloth over more and more of her face.

She was still so pale. Her skin almost gray in its pallor. It scared him, how much like death she looked. How she could still be alive and his babies too, he seemed to re question every few minutes. Damon slipped his hand under her shirt by her belly to reassure himself that they were indeed alive. It was just hidden from anyone not concentrating so intensely on her or their babies heartbeats, that were barely clear enough for him to feel when his palm was on her.

Stefan had been pacing, and talking in rushed tones to Jeremy and then whistled to Damon and tilted his head to him that he was leaving for a bit. Damon nodded and watched him go. They both knew Damon was strong enough to protect her now and as an added precaution, Stefan had compelled a couple policemen to guard their room from just outside the door.

Klaus thought Elena had died so Damon didn't really expect him to be coming after anyone anytime soon. He saw with his own eyes when Elijah stabbed Caroline that she had gone pale and veiny, just like any other vampire when they had been staked. So Klaus was more than likely still grieving her and not coming after any of them.

Klaus believed Elena and Stefan to be dead and he had seen Damon at the end of the torture of the werewolf toxin. Maybe he believed Damon was dead by now too? One could hope. Especially since it didn't seem like there was a way to cloak Elena and the babies till they actually had a witch that wasn't missing or in a coma that they could use for the spell.

Elijah had mentioned his own witches had been waiting only 10 miles or so from the cabin. They had never found out what happened to them either. They were supposed to protect Elena and his babies. Dr. Martin and Luka together Elijah said, would be strong enough to keep 3 humans cloaked and safe.

Damon sat on the bed beside his precious girl and wiped the cloth down her neck and down between her breasts. She was not wearing anything but the thin dark button down that was torn and bloody and her nearly skin tight jeans were still wet. Damon wondered if being in wet clothes was making her sick at all.

Concerned blue eyes moved back up to her head and he placed his palm on forehead. It was warm to his touch, almost hot. She had been so cold before and now she seemed like she was running a fever. That made no sense. He examined her further, checking her body for any more signs of illness or broken bones or anything that could be wrong.

When he lifted her one sleeve to look at her hand he gasped at what he saw... Grayish lines, almost veiny like when a vampire died were snaking up her hand to her wrist! Darkening her skin even more and spreading up and around her hand and arm.

His hand moved back fast from her skin, like it would infect him too. But he ran his thumb down it moments later and nothing happened. It was cold to the touch, much colder than the rest of her body. What the hell was going on?! She wasn't a vampire?

She was carrying half vampire babies so maybe that had something to do with it. But either way it made no sense why her body looked to be dying when she was simply under the influence of a drug to slow and mask her heartbeat.

Damon pulled her into his arms and raced to open the door. Stefan had mouthed to him that he was going to where Bonnie was so Damon knew he needed to find them. He had no idea how to fix what was wrong with his beautiful fiance and now it looked like they had some kind of magical fucking timer on it.

He burst past the police guarding the room and simply compelled them to follow him to protect them both. Carrying her in his arms, he went straight for the nurses station and compelled the sweet blonde lady with bright blue glasses to where Bonnie Bennett's room was. She pointed down the hall to the surgical ward and Damon blurred that direction.

Finding her room number, he ran in the room and saw Stefan and Tyler by Bonnie's bedside. She still looked unconscious and had a ventilator breathing for her. Stefan looked up the second he burst in. His brother raced to his side and Damon held up her arm showing Stef the darkened skin. He felt her head again and she was burning up even more than before.

Stefan said that Jeremy wanted him to try something and just heal Bonnie's head wounds with vampire blood without her ingesting it. He was more than halfway home with Lucy and hoping she would know what else they could do to give Bonnie the best chance to make it through the night and recover.

Damon had nodded hearing all this, but interrupted his brother. "Well I'm going to try to get her fever down and get her in a colder shower. I don't know what else to do either Stefan but I have to do something! Call a nurse to come in give her some fever reducing meds too." He saw his brother nodding his agreement and said he would be right back to their room.

Damon blurred back to their room, laid her on the bed and raced to the bathroom. Turning on the water and letting it flow cooler he looked around for anything he could dress her in to get her out of the wet clothes. He raced past the guards at the door and into the closest room where he saw a young woman around her 20s likely was laying sleeping in the bed.

Rummaging fast though an overnight bag, he found a long thin knit tank top, soft PJ pants, a sweater, jeans and a few pairs of underwear and socks. He tossed a few more items back out of the bag and grabbed what he wanted to keep and sped back to their room.

She was laying so peacefully on the bed and he bent to check her head again. Yes she was definitely running a fever and it had spread and now her cheeks and neck and chest were getting warm too.

Carefully he unbuttoned the dark long sleeved shirt she had on and gently slipped it from her shoulders and down her arms. He lifted her head, cradling it in his open palm and slipped the white tank top down, pulling her arms through.

Damon brushed a kiss to her forehead and smoothed her hair down gently and tucked it the stray dark strands behind her ears. Her hair was still so tangled and bloody. He would do his best to wash it in the shower while cooling her off. He wanted to be respectful and discreet as he could be so he determined to leave her somewhat clothed. Tugging the still wet jeans down her legs, he rolled the denim down and slip them off and tossed them aside.

He pulled her back into his arms, shifting her head to his chest and walked them slowly back to the bathroom. Stefan had just walked in and he nodded to Damon that he was there and they would be safe. Damon gave his brother a nod and closed the door behind them.

Leaning back on the bathroom counter he pulled his scrub top off with one hand. He shifted Elena in his arms against his chest and stepped under the spray of the water. Damon jumped at how cold he made but knew that it would help to cool her body temperature. He slid down the wall of the shower till he was sitting on the tiled floor, letting the water fall all over her limp body in his arms.

Damon stared down at her closed eyes, her reddened cheeks. He tenderly smoothed a strand of hair from her face to tuck behind her ear and held her close, letting the water fall down soaking them both. He stroked her cheek, feeling more emotional again at missing her.

"C'mon sweetness, you have to wake up," Damon whimpered and bent his head to rest against hers. "Please baby. I need you. I need to know you are okay Elena. You have to come back to me."

He felt tears slip silently down his face to fall to her cheek to be washed away by the water falling on them. He wasn't vulnerable like this with anyone but her. He had been strong so long and fought so hard to get her out of the cabin and safe and away from Klaus. She had to be okay. They had been through far too much for her not to come back to him.

Damon could taste the saltiness of his tears at his lips as he bent to kiss her. He shuddered at the cold emptiness he felt when she didn't kiss him back. He moved his lips more over hers, running his tongue along the seam of them and still nothing. Maybe he thought he could pull her out of it like a true loves kiss. He was willing to try anything to bring her back.

His shoulders started shaking as he sobbed quietly against her body. He held her tighter, the water washing the blood and mud and soot from her skin as he sat curled up on the floor of the shower. The white ribbed tank top was nearly see through now on her as he bent his head to cry against her chest.

Damon gave in to the grief and the fear of not knowing if she would come back. He let it in, just like he had, laying on his bed ready to plunge a stake through his heart. Before, he thought they were all gone forever and now feeling her in his arms and not knowing if they could get her to wake up felt like almost worse torture.

He had been given hope, by Stefan who was alive and well and cured and his brother had raced like hell to get him the cure in time too. He had hope that she and his babies would come back to him, but then holding them still so lifeless in his arms felt like hell. Time crawled by with her still not waking up and each moment he felt the hope dwindle more and more.

Sniffling he pulled his head back up from her chest and fought to hold back more tears. He gazed down at her face and ran his fingers through her hair, tugging the knots out and washing the blood away. It was so hard to look at her like this but he focused on washing her hair as she lay against him, pulling the strands apart, and rubbing shampoo through it over and over till her brunette locks were silky smooth between his fingers.

The cool water was helping. Her face and neck did not feel nearly as warm. Damon breathed out a whispered thank you and used a cloth to wipe the blood off her arms and hands, taking each hand in his to wipe away all traces of the hell she had endured.

It surprised him that he had not thought of tasting the blood even once. His vampire nature was over ridden but his human love for her and his grief and fear of losing her. His body barely noticed the blood on her like he would normally. All he wanted was to wash it away, not feed on her or lick it up. Nothing of his vampire nature was even a thought right now.

He lifted the thin tank top to run the cloth over her smooth flat sexy belly. Damon felt a smile curling on his lips as he imagined her belly swollen, full with his babies. He washed the blood and dust and dirt from her skin and closed his eyes, seeing them laughing and walking through town, stopping a little shops, looking at cribs and baby clothes and toys. He imagined walking behind her, his hands sliding around her full stomach, as he buried his head against the hollow of her throat. She would turn to him and smile, her lips finding his and they would kiss in the middle of the aisle in the baby store as he felt his babies kick under his palm.

Right now their tiny heartbeats would have to be enough. It was all he had of them and he was already so so in love with his children.

Rubbing the cloth down her bare legs he wiped them clean too, carefully, slowly, taking his time and being as gentle as he could with her. Her legs were covered in bruises, her arms too, and yet a lot had healed since the hell in the tomb. He knew she didn't want any vampire blood and Klaus had said the same not knowing what he might do to her or the babies. Damon had tried to feed it to her when she was almost unconsciousness from smoke inhalation and was coughing up blood and hardly able to breath. But it had slid down her mouth and she had not even been able to swallow.

When he had finished washing her, his body slumped in exhaustion. Emotionally he was wiped out completely. Even though he felt strength in his muscles and his body as a whole, his heart was in pieces. Damon's hand moved, finding his babies heartbeats again and his head fell back to the wall of the shower. He cradled her in his arms and closed his eyes rocking her back and forth.

He wanted more. This wasn't enough. It was so hard to hold her like this and not have her slip her hand behind his head into the curls at the nape of his neck. Or gaze at him with that intoxicating love look she had for him alone. He wanted to feel her eyes on him, see her smile, taste her kisses and feel her arms tight around him.

Damon had a thought. He had taken them away into her head before when he showed her their first kiss or when she saw them meet for the first time and said goodbye to her parents. Maybe he could find her in her mind now..

He stood up slowly, turning off the water and grabbed for a few towels, draping them around her nearly bare body before he sunk back down against the wall. He had curled one towel around her torso, wrapping her up from her shoulders to her stomach, the other towel around her waist and legs and still another around her wet hair.

Damon laid a hand on her head, closing his eyes and concentrated on finding her in her own mind.

He felt himself in a rush of air transported from the brightness of the showers stall to where there was nothing but darkness all around him. Concentrating, pouring all his focus into finding her in her head he started calling out. "Elena! Elena where are you?"

There was nothing but inky darkness all around him, so much so that even his vampire sight could not give him any clues to where to go. He heard his boots clicking in the hard floor beneath his feet, his jeans he wore swishing against his legs.

Suddenly his head turned to the faintest sound. He could hear the softest whimper coming from farther ahead of him. Stumbling in the darkness he kept calling out to her, praying she could here him. "Elena, Elena, baby it's Damon. Can you hear me?" He focused on nothing but his super hearing as again he heard a soft cry.

Damon took off running through the darkness toward the sounds. He knew with all his heart that it had to be her! "Elena! I'm coming! I can hear you!" He ran faster, and felt his heart racing more with each pound of his boots on the ground bringing him closer to her.

"Damon!"

He heard her! She was calling for him! He slowed down hearing the voice so close and the next second felt her small body leap into his arms!

"Damon! Oh my God! I can't believe you are here?" Elena had flung herself in his arms, her jean clad legs wrapping around his waist. He pulled her close instantly, his hands around her back, holding her up in his arms. It was still pitch dark around them and he could not see her.

He buried his head in her soft long hair and breathed her in. "I'm here baby. I'm here. Just hold onto me okay?" Damon felt her nod as her arms tightened around his neck. He whooshed them at vampire speed out of the darkness and watched her blinking at the bright light of the sunlight around them.

Elena gazed up in his face as a smile grew on her lips before she buried herself in his embrace. He held her tight, feeling the warmth of her body against his, stroking down her hair over and over.

"I'm here. I'm here," he kept mumbling over and over as she hung onto him with a death grip. Her head was resting just under his chin, against his black button down shirt as he rocked her and held her so close.

Within seconds he felt her shaking in his arms and bent his head to see the tears streaming down her cheeks to soak into his shirt. Damon was rubbing her back and shushing her, his head bent right by her ear. He sunk down into the soft grass with her straddling his lap. She was literally shaking in his arms, her whole body trembling as heaving sobs came up her throat and she held tight to his waist.

Elena's fingers had snuck under his shirt and he could feel her fingers curled around his bare back as her head still just lay against his chest. He saw her eyes were closed, her lashes wet with more tears as her breathing started to slow down.

No words were spoken, maybe none needed at all as they both held onto each other like they never wanted to let go. Damon inhaled her scent, his nose in her hair, kissing her head over and over as he rocked her. She had never felt so good in his arms. Losing her, and his babies had shook him to his core. He had never thought he would hold her like this again.

He knew this was only in her head and she was still laying limp in his embrace in the shower but it felt so real and he knew it meant she wasn't gone. He wanted to stay here with her. He didn't want to go back to reality. This was where she was alive and holding him just like he had been longing for since the moment he realized she had drowned.

Damon moaned as her fingers slipped up to curl behind his head, just like he had imagined. He had cried, aching to feel her fingers in his hair again. Elena lifted her head, her smile so wide, so pure and full of love. His hands moved up to cradle her face, gazing deeply in her eyes.

Elena pulled down on his neck, crashing her lips onto his, breathing hard and whimpering his name. He held her head, weaving his fingers in her hair as he felt her tongue tangling with his.

"Mmm god baby," Damon rasped out, opening more and holding her head tight to his as he felt her body flush with his own. Her hips were rubbing against his, her body warm and soft as he slid a hand beneath her long sleeved navy top, digging still deeper to find his way under her camisole too. Her skin was so soft, so warm and he could feel her heaving breathes as they kissed hungrily.

Damon was holding this dream world together the best he could. He had brought them back to the Mystic Falls, just like he had when they been traveling to the cabin to hide from Klaus in the first place. He had been rudely interrupted by his brother telling them there were there as he had been floating in the water with her, arms around each other, bodies so close, as they almost kissed then. He promised her he would bring them back to this dream world again when he could.

But right now it looked like she had not even seen anything around them and had been focused on nothing but him. Damon had reveled in it too, cherishing every single second of her alive and warm in his arms, knowing coming back from this heavenly dream she would be limp and cold like death again till they could figure out how to wake her.

Elena was still kissing him deeply, her whole body pressed against him as he sat back against a tree at the edge of the falls. He could hear the loud pounding of the water and feel the mist on his face. It was the most beautiful place to take her and they had not even been there in real life yet. He wanted to marry her with the falls as their backdrop to their wedding.

Damon heard more sounds in the hospital room. He heard the door open and an over lap of voices. He couldn't hold the dream together much longer anyway.

He focused back on her and pulled back from her kisses to look into her eyes. "Elena, I have to go…"

She was already shaking her head, clinging to him tighter. "No Damon. I've been so alone! I have been screaming and crying for you for hours. You can't leave me again. Please!"

The pain in her voice was breaking him. He cupped her face, stroking her cheeks with his thumbs. "This isn't real...not yet baby. But I am working on getting you back. I promise I will not be gone long."

Elena was sniffling, her fingers gripping his shirt not wanting to let go. "I'm not alive? Did I drown? Are the babies?..." She trailed off, the fear so evident all her face.

"No, no angel. You are alive. Babies are alive too," Damon reassured her, his eyes soft and his gaze deep as he moved her hand under his on her belly. "You just aren't waking up. Elijah gave you a drug to mimic your death so Klaus would leave thinking he lost. You are alive Elena. We just can't get you to wake up. Going to find you in your head was the only way I could think of to be with you."

Elena was nodding and sniffling, wiping the tears from her face before moving the one hand to stroke down his cheek tenderly. "I missed you so much. I was so scared I would die in the cabin when the beams fell on me. I felt so weak..."

"I know Lena. I know. But we made it," Damon tried to smile to get her to smile. "I will bring you back, I promise." He held her head, his hands stroking down her hair and he nodded firmly.

She nodded back, sucking in a shaky breath, licking at the tears by her lips. "It's so dark here without you Damon. Please, please hurry."

"I will baby. Just hold on a little longer." He felt the dream scape start to fade and he hated that he would be leaving her in the fucking dark again. He had no idea how to change that. The falls started to disappear behind them, the powerful crashing sounds fading, the trees melting away.

Elena was crying and struggling so hard to be strong, he knew it. He hated leaving her. But he needed to build up his strength to go back in her head again. He needed more blood.

Damon could feel her strong grip on his neck, her arms locked around him. "I love you Damon," she breathed out and offered him a trembling smile.

"I love you too Lanie. I will be back as soon as I can...I promise." And the grassy hill faded to nothing as he felt her grip on him disappear.

Damon opened his eyes and saw her laying in his arms as he was still on the floor in the shower. He stood up, wrapping the towels more around her and opened the door awkwardly with one hand, still holding her against his bare chest. His scrub pants were soaked but he didn't care or want her to leave his arms to change.

He was right about hearing people out here and his eyes darted around to see who Stefan had found to help. He saw Luka standing beside Stefan. Damon saw a taller man in a suit turn and he breathed a sigh of relief.

"Elijah! About fucking time," he snapped making his way over and sat back down on one of beds, wrapping Elena in the blanket "First of all, thank you for figuring out how to keep her alive so Klaus would think she's dead. I am still in shock about all that."

Elijah nodded silently but didn't say any more. Damon was more than grateful. He was overjoyed that everything he saw had been a lie. It felt unreal but he didn't care how he did it. Now he just wanted it undone.

Damon shifted her weight in his arms seeing the others in the room all silent as well. "But now you owe us an explanation to why she is still not waking up..." He glared unflinchingly at the Original turned toward him. "She had been out for hours already and just a half hour or so ago got a really high fever and now this." He held up her arm and the dark, pale veiny skin was spreading up her arm, almost to her elbow.

Damon looked back and forth between Elijah and Luka. No one said anything. "Nobody? Really?" Stefan was quiet too staying back and letting Damon rant. "I just left my girl, scared and crying in the dark in her head after finding her in there and trying to calm her down. She is fucking terrified and totally alone." He felt his anger growing. "So I just have one question...What the _hell_ did you do to my girl?" Damon snarled, his vamp face appearing as he felt his fangs.

Elijah cleared his throat and straightened his tie. "Damon, I'm so sorry for all you have been through and Elena too. I have think I have some answers for you. I didn't want to contact you till I knew more. You are right, we need to talk."

Damon nodded at him. "Yes, yes we do."

It was time for the Original to explain what the fuck was going on and he was all ears...

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 **A/N;** **I saw another author on here say on her story that reviews are the balm to an authors soul. I loved that. And she could not be more right.**

 **They are or only way to know you are liking what we are writing and spending hours on for our readers. They encourage us, uplift us and motivate us to get the chapters out to you quicker. We read them over and over and treasure your thoughts. Our stories are dear to our hearts and I think all authors would agree to that. These characters have become far more to us than simply what they were on the show and we love playing in the world they were created in.**

 **So please take a minute a leave one and I will see you next time. I hope you are enjoying the story.**

 **Next chapter we will find out what is going on with Elena and Damon will be faced with some intense circumstances in order to bring her and his babies back to him.**


	4. Witchy Interference Part 1

**A/N Double update for you today!**

 **I have been writing all weekend and it just got too long and I am trying to stay away from doing such long chapters like I had been before. So I will post the other one yet tonight too. I hope you like the action. I had imagined this ending for the series before so that is why the danger isn't over yet. There will a time of peace yet for our favorite couple...but right now its do or die to get Elena to wake up so its not going to be easy at least for awhile.**

 **So please trust me that they will soon be safe and free eventually and hang on while its still not easy for any of them.**

 **Just gotta have a little faith...**

* * *

Damon took in the drawn expression on Elijah's face. Whatever he knew wasn't good. He could feel the foreboding in his tone at him. But he had to know, whatever it was. As long as he wasn't saying there was no way to bring her back, Damon didn't care what it took. He was full of strength again.

Nothing hurt except his heart...aching for his family to be alive and safe.

He was ready for whatever kamikaze mission Elijah would throw his way. And he could dive back into her head just as soon as he got more blood in his system to reassure her that rescue was coming. He knew she hated being the damsel in distress but she could use her kick ass Petrova fire another day.

Right now he knew he just had to get her out of the dark in her head. He could not imagine the fear she must be feeling being so alone and then forced to watch him leave so soon after he found her and pulled her out of the dark. He hated leaving her like that.

Stefan was passing him a pile of clothes and he took them from his hands. "I compelled an orderly to go back to the mansion and get you some clothes, boots and another of your jackets since this one was ruined by the fire." Stefan nodded to Damon and he took the clothes gratefully. Being dressed in doctor scrubs was not his first choice and he was super grateful his brother had thought of finding his own clothes.

"He could not find your ring though brother," Stefan said his voice low. Damon's head snapped up from where he was already moving to get dressed.

"Say what?" He cocked his head at his brother. Damon really hoped his vamp hearing was still adjusting and he had heard him wrong.

Stefan asked him before why on earth he wasn't wearing his ring and Damon had reluctantly told him he had tried to burn alive on the front lawn earlier that day. It wasn't a conversation he cared to repeat and he had gone and showered after leaving his baby bro to his shock of how badly Damon had wanted to die before he found him.

But now he wanted that ring back almost as much as he wanted his family. Without his ring he couldn't protect her fully, even when she did wake up.

"I'm saying the guy told me he looked all over on the lawn, especially around the front porch you so violently demolished. Thank you for that, by the way." Stefan smiled fakely at him and Damon smiled back, his lips in a thin line.

"Anytime brother. You might not have seen the parlor yet too but it will need some uh fixing up too."

"Oh I saw it Damon. Even blurring to your room to save your life...yep I saw it." Stefan nodded at him, smiling again tersely and then seemed to drop it. "Your ring wasn't there anywhere. I'm going to go back and check myself. We can't have you walking around without your ring Damon and we have no witches to spell you a new one right now either.

"No shit Sherlock. I need that ring..." He practically whined knowing if he hadn't been so gung ho to join Elena, Romeo and Juliet style he would have it safely on his hand. Damon just let that last sentence hang in the air and then he shut his mouth. They weren't the only ones in the room and yet they just about had fight number two about his ring and this time with an audience.

Damon huffed angrily, ripped the scrub shirt off and shrugged into a black long sleeved button down, buttoning it up before discarding the wet scrub pants. Quickly slipping into the dark washed jeans he pulled them up his legs and zipped and buttoned them up too. He was furious. Had someone taken his daylight ring? He had no clue why it wasn't where he dropped it.

"Fine, one problem at a time. First priority...What do you know Elijah?" Damon finally spat out when no one was doing anything it seemed like, except watch him change. He didn't care what they saw but he was sick of waiting to find out what happened to Elena.

He had fought through hell to get back to her and save her and now she wasn't waking up and his fucking ring was gone and he was still mad that his beautiful Camero had been blow sky high. His patience had flown out the window hours ago, days ago even with all they had been through.

Damon pulled his belt closed before putting on socks and his trademark black boots, feeling much more like himself after nearly being burned and staked to death before. He had a few pairs of his favorite boots and jackets in his closet, favorite John Varvatos shirts too. He knew what he liked so he bought plenty if he ever needed more.

The jacket that had burned in the fire he had been his favorite for a long time already and had very much become his favorite possession besides his car. But both the jacket and his precious car had been burned and destroyed in the last day so he had no choice but let those things go.

Sitting back down he pulled Elena in his arms as he waited to hear what the Original would say. She was all that mattered to him. Not his car or his clothes. They were nice sure, but she was priceless. Whatever it took to wake her, to bring her and his babies back he would do...no question.

Elijah cleared his throat for the second time. "Well Damon, she was supposed to wake up. Free and clear just after I gave her the antidote. There was nothing complicated at all about it. At first I thought I hadn't revived her in time but then Stefan told me he could hear her heart and your children's too so it wasn't that I was too late."

Damon sighed. He just wanted him to spit it out. Whatever it was, he had to be strong enough to take it. But he stayed quiet, letting him speak. He ripped the bag of blood from the IV stand and gulped it down in big swallows thinking that might quell some of his frustration. The blood felt amazing after he had puked up so much of it before.

Stefan had stopped pacing for once and was slumped in the chair across from him. He looked exhausted but stared at Damon enjoying the blood. He thought of offering him some but Stefan needed to take it easy on any amount of human blood. He still hadn't learned control and had just come back from nearly dying from the werewolf bite.

Klaus blood seemed to have healed everything, even when he looked so sick, his skin hanging off his bones and his body so close to death. Now he looked better than Damon had seen him in a long time. He was full of strength and energy and looked like nothing had ever been so so wrong. Damon left a few swallows of blood in the bag and passed it to his brother. A little bit would help and not hurt him and Stefan took the bag, smiling appreciatively.

Elijah spoke up again and Damon turned his head back to him, wiping his mouth and looking around for more to drink. "After you ran Damon thinking everyone you loved had died, I gave Stefan Klaus' blood from the dagger I had stabbed him with. Stefan was cured and then he took Elena and ran to find you before you took your own life."

Damon nodded remembering just how close Stefan had been to not getting there in time. He pushed the call bell by the bed, shifting Elena to his other arm as he continued to listen to Elijah's story.

"After Stefan raced to find you I went to find my witches and found Luka knocked out and bleeding at the gas station we were supposed to meet them at."

Running his fingers through his fiances hair was helping him relax as Damon stared at the young boy. He hadn't said a word since he had walked into the room.

"Luka told me their sister intercepted them back at the gas station and his father tried to get her to come with them and leave Klaus. They had been wanting to free her from my brother's clutches ever since she got taken and it turned out she didn't want to be saved." Elijah continued his story, his voice low as he put one hand on Luka's shoulder. "She fought back when their dad tried to force her into submission and to drop the crazy idea that Klaus was her family now."

Luka nodded sniffling and Damon was silent taking in everything they said. Somehow this had something to do with his girl but he didn't know how long he could wait to find out how it connected.

"Dad had been talking to her and when she kept refusing to leave Klaus, he used his magic to grab and subdue her. But my sister was far stronger than either of us were aware of and she used his magic against him and they both went flying back."

Luka started breathing harder and Elijah squeezed his shoulder as he saw him start to get emotional. "He fell and hit his head on the cement curb by the sidewalk. She screamed out that she didn't want to be saved but when she saw dad's head start gushing blood she looked like she wished she could take it all back. It was too late though and he was gone!"

He choked on a sob before inhaling sharply. "I couldn't stop it, it happened so fast! When I tried to move to stop her, my sister blasted me with her energy and I flew against some garbage cans and almost lost consciousness. I could hardly open my eyes feeling so weak as I heard her crying out for him."

Ice blue eyes zeroed in on the forlorn young warlock. He saw the pain on his face and knew how it felt to lose his own father, even a father who hated him. But Damon wasn't thinking of that now. "I'm sorry for your loss, really I am, but what does this have to do with Elena?"

Gently he laid Elena back down on the bed beside him, still keeping her wrapped in the blankets. He stood up and used one of the towels to dry his hair off more. A young lady nurse came in the room and asked what they needed.

Damon moved toward her. "I was the one that called. I'm still so hungry." The nurse started asked him what he wanted her to bring him and he placed a hand on her shoulder, swiping her hair back gently. She looked nervous and was about to back away. "Don't scream sweetie. You are all the food I need."

He bent his head and bit into her neck, holding her head in his hand, his other arm supporting her body as she sunk into his embrace. He could not remember how long it had been since he enjoyed fresh blood. He was doing this for Elena and so he could find her again in her head. However he did not deny that he loved the feeling of it sliding down his throat, warm, thick and rich with sweetness.

The others in the room hadn't said a word as Damon fed. Stefan had his eyes closed, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. Maybe he was going la la la la in his head to avoid even hearing Damon drinking human blood around him. Luka had spun toward the wall, leaning his palms on it panting heavily. Elijah had turned to him to get him to finish his story.

Damon could feel the woman's heartbeat slowing and he pulled back from her throat reluctantly. He wanted more but he knew he had taken enough from her. Within half a minute he had fed her his blood and compelled her to forget everything and she wandered out of the room, bandage in place and none the wiser. Damon closed his eyes, relishing the blood flooding his system before focusing back on the warlock and the Original.

"C'mon warlock. Just spit it out," he mumbled, wiping his mouth again as he felt his vampire face fade. "We all have dead parent stories here. It happens. But what does your sob story have to do with my girl?" Insensitive, yeah he knew that. But he wasn't wearing doctor scrubs anymore so his bedside manner did not have to be any kind of good.

Luka glared at him, his eyes rimmed with tears before he finally spoke. "My sister did something to her! She did a spell using Elena's blood," he snapped out. "She thought I was unconscious but I heard her talking to someone on the phone too."

Damon was ready to attack the little warlock. He was furious. A spell? What the hell did she do? Elijah got between them before Damon strode more than 2 steps in rage toward him. Stefan was up and out of the chair and pulling him back to sit back down.

His hands went up at his sides in surrender that he wasn't going to attack him again but he was fuming that these damn witches had messed with his family. "Fine! Just tell me what the hell your sister did to Elena?! Why was she using her blood? How the fuck did she have Elena's blood?" Damon snapped, his patience at its breaking point.

Luka backed away, staying behind Elijah. Elijah looked back at Damon his expression trying to calm him too but Damon pushed him away angrily.

Elijah spoke quietly but his low voice only served to make Damon angrier."My brother used her blood for the spell that allowed her to become pregnant Damon. Klaus had her blood or you would not have your twins. Greta was his witch."

He was right. Klaus had taken Elena and his blood to create the babies. Damon remembered Klaus saying his witches spelled the werewolf venom so it poisoned him faster too. God knows what else he had used their blood for!

Wait... _was_ his witch? Was she dead too? Damon saw Stefan watching him likely wondering if he should intervene too but he nodded to his brother that he was okay.

Damon threw up his hands turning away from everyone and moved back to the bed. Elena would have been able to calm him almost instantly. She was his calm. He sat back down, pulling her into his lap again and buried his nose in her hair taking in her scent.

Breathing her in, he felt his anger dissipating. He knew he had to hear them out to find out how to bring her back. He wished to God that he had done more to protect her. He took in a few more deep breaths and finally turned back to the now orphaned warlock and raised his eyebrow. Closing his eyes slowly, he opened them, running his lips along her hair as he held her in his arms. "Please Luka. Just tell me what your sister used Elena's blood for and how we can fix it. Please," he begged.

The warlocks shoulder's slumped in relief and he looked almost sadly back at Damon. Like he was sorry about what was done. "Greta did a linking spell on your girl," he nodded toward him. "I watching her open a vial of blood and cut herself mixing the blood with her own. She was talking to someone and telling them that she did it and had linked them together. I understood the Latin chanting to link the doppelgangers life to a witches life force. Greta would need their blood to bring her back. I didn't hear the other persons side of the conversation but she sounded like she knew them and owed them."

She was what?! Linked to another witch? This wasn't making any sense. Was this part of Klaus' plan? Did he know she wasn't dead? Damon was ready to jump on the stupid little boy again. What the hell was going on?! Luka's eyes widened as seeing Damon eyes flash yellow and he growled out in more anger as he stood back up, tenderly laying Elena back down. Luka backed away more hiding behind Elijah again. "Ask her yourself! Leave me out of it!" he cried out in fear.

Damon's eyes darted to Elijah, his fists clenching at his sides. "What? She's here?"

Elijah nodded slowly. "She is. I was chasing her and when Luka was strong enough he did a locator spell and we found her hiding out near the airport ready to flee the country likely after all that went down and Klaus running.

Damon moved forward, tilting his head to the side. Stefan was moving closer again too. Did no one trust him to exercise _any_ restraint? Yes he wanted at her, that was that was for sure, but not to destroy their only means of information to get Elena back. _She_ was the reason his angel wasn't waking up. Elijah stood between Damon and the door to the room. "Don't kill her Damon or we won't find out what she did and who she was talking too," Elijah warned.

The raven haired vampire nodded slowly in agreement, eying Stefan's slow advance toward him too. "Relax guys, really. I just want to have a _very_ motivating conversation with witchy pants. I'm not going to do anything stupid" Damon looked around seeing his brother and the Original back away more. He wasn't going to kill her, just motivate her to tell him who the hell she was talking too.

Elijah stood back near the door, turned to open it and motioned someone outside. Two men came in holding a young dark haired woman between them. She was struggling and fighting them but her hands were cuffed in front of her preventing her from doing much to escape. They left her against the wall and then moved back out the door, closing it behind them.

Damon sized her up, his blue eyes wide, the vampire visage flooding his face again. Damn straight he wanted to scare her and he smirked at her rapid inhale when she saw him focused in on her. "Well, well Witchy. How about you tell me what the hell is your deal in this before I decide to rip out your tongue and feed it to you." He cocked his head, feeling a tick in his jaw that he wanted to just race the bitch and strangle the information out of her.

He counted to 3 and then he had blurred across the room and rushed her against the wall. He heard her groan and already saw Stefan moving forward to pull him back. He spun his head and glared at him in warning that he was not taking no for an answer.

His hand around her throat prevented her from using any of her witchy chanting against him and he shook her body, against pushing her against the wall harder. "Tell me who you linked her to?! Who's damn blood do we need to wake her?!"

Elijah was slowly trying to pry his hand off her and he snarled at him in warning that he would turn his anger onto him too if he didn't stay out of it. But even with his forceful interrogation she hadn't said and word and only coughed and gagged as he let go of her neck and she fell to the floor.

Damon bent down and gripped her chin and yanked her head up to look at him. The witch was practically hissing at him in her own rage. She wasn't going to tell him, he could see that in her eyes. She was loyal to whoever it was. Fiercely loyal.

Both his brother and Elijah stayed back and seemed to trust that he was not just going to kill their only lead. Luka still looked like he was in shock as he stared out into space leaning against the wall behind him. Damon moved his gaze back to the witch forcing her head to face Elena still laying on the bed.

He could feel his fangs again and the rush of blood pulsing his veins. "You will tell me what the hell you did to my girl witch!" He leaned in a mere inch from her wide eyes. "Or you will never speak again!"

Damon squeezed her throat and heard her choking, fighting his hand wrapped around her neck. "Was it Klaus?! Does he know Elena is alive? Did he do this!?" He knew they had both needed the Originals blood to cure them of the werewolf toxin but if they needed his blood for her too?

Oh fuck he didn't even want to think of facing that monster again. Was this his plan all along? He knew Damon would have to come to him and bring her in order to wake her. Then he had her just as he had wanted. All of their running and hiding would have been for nothing.

Greta had started turning blue in his iron grip and he let go. If he squeezed any harder he would snap the bones in her neck. He watched her sink down to a crumpled heap on the floor. But there was a small clattering sound and he saw her phone slip from her jacket and crack on the floor. Damon looked around at the others in the room as the girl lay unconscious now in front of him. He scooped up the phone and flicked it on. He grabbed for her hand and pressed her thumb to the screen and it opened up.

Damon passed his brother a cautious smile. He scrolled to the incoming calls and saw the last number dialed staring up at him. Stefan had moved toward him now and nodded to him. They had to know. And whoever it was, that person was his only hope. He pushed call and waited…

A loud ringing echoed around the room and Damon's head snapped up and zeroed in at the sound. What the hell?! It couldn't be...it rang again and he stared at where the sound was coming from. Stefan followed his gaze too and looked back at him with confusion all over his face.

Standing up Damon walked slowly toward the chair. The phone was glowing in the back pocket of his torn and bloody jeans, till he lifted it out and held it to his ear, accepting the call. Both phones were quiet, plunging the room into silence.

Damon shut his eyes slowly, his jaw tightening. No, no no. It couldn't be. It wasn't possible…

Stefan interrupted his thoughts. "Damon...why...how...the call came from you? You called Greta?"

Damon shook his head back and forth his mind racing through what could have happened. "It's not my phone Stef. I smashed mine way back in the tomb when I had just gotten captured by Brody. You were out cold and Elena and I were chained to the wall."

He hadn't had any time to replace his phone since. The one in his hand flashed and almost sparked, the screen going black for a second. It had been underwater when him and Klaus had fought by the dock.

Stefan still looked so confused. "Well who's phone is it? Do you know who's behind this?" Damon nodded numbly, still not believing it. He thought back. If it was true...there was no way to bring her back…

 _"Oh my plan will happen Damon. With or without you...I will have her. You were welcome to come along too and be with her. To see that I would_ _ _not__ _harm your children. But you just seem intent on pissing me off and tempting me to leave you out here to die."_

 _"I'm pissing_ _ _you__ _off?!" Damon snapped back at him, again trying to pull the branch out of his gut. His skin was trying to heal around the damn branch, not understanding why the foreign object was still in him. "You are the one coming after little unborn babies. My babies!"_

 _"I wouldn't have to if you would just trust me that I don't have a choice! Caroline will die if I don't. A horrible gruesome and if I'm right fiery death just for loving me! My father loves his style."_

 _He dialed Maddox's number and held the phone to his ear watching Damon to make sure he stayed put. The ringing then echoed from around them and Klaus realized it was coming from Damon._

 _He studied him smirking again at him. "Oh yeah, did I forget to mention we killed your witch. Dead, dead, dead," Damon singsonged, his eyebrows waggling. "Actually just two deads. Took him somehow coming back to life once first. But don't worry, he is very destroyed now. I made sure he had no heart left."_

 _Klaus growled at him hardly believing what he was hearing. "You killed Maddox?" he whispered to him, slamming his phone off and shoving it back in his pocket._

 _"Umm, yeah." Damon's voice raised an octave again as he spoke, nearly spitting the words out. "The bastard was kissing, licking and fucking fondling my girl right in front of me and telling us even once you had Elena that he would come in and take advantage of her cause she reminded him of an ex or something," Damon snapped at him, not even wanting to remember it._

Damon felt weak, his knees almost giving out on him, stumbling forward to fall to the edge of the bed. No. He was dead. If Elijah was right Elena needed his blood to wake her? The warlock that Damon had killed twice already?!

Stefan was still staring at him not understanding what was going on. Even Elijah looked puzzled and moved closer after consoling Luka who had sunk against the far wall by the door.

Damon's mind was racing, but he felt like his tongue had frozen in his mouth, hardly able to communicate anything to the others. "Klaus had two witches," he started and Elijah nodded. Greta was laying unconscious on the floor beside them and Maddox was his other trusted witch. _A friend she_ _owed_ _?_

His vision was blurring as his eyes threatened to spill more tears. "I killed him Stefan," he breathed out. "I killed him. He was hurting Elena...touching her, making her bleed, feeling my babies. I killed him."

Damon was in shock and he rubbed his temples feeling his head pounding at this new information. "We need _that_ bastards blood to bring her back?" He felt like he was walking underwater, his blood pounding in his ears.

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 **A/N: Eeek scary and sounds impossible. There is a very good explanation for everything that they are discovering and this was all part of doing book 4 like readers had wanted and not ending it happily having her wake up and Damon find his family HEA. This will take more time and a deeper plot.**

 **I'm sure you aren't in any way happy about what it will take to wake her but it is possible as crazy as it sounds...**

 **I'm eager to hear what you think. Damon will have his girl alive in his arms sooner than you think...**

 **Hit that review button and enjoy part 2 uploading tonight too!**


	5. Witchy Interference Part 2

Greta took that moment to gasp out and throw her head up. Her eyes darted around as she was panting heavily. As soon as she locked eyes with Damon he blurred at her, lifting her up, slamming her back against the mirror on the wall, his hand around her throat again. The glass shattered behind her and fell all around both of them as she struggled to breathe.

He was seething, his words spat out between clenched teeth. "What. Did. You. Do?!"

Elijah and Stefan both dove forward pulling Damon off of her, holding him back and he fought and growled out fighting them, throwing Stefan across the room and fighting Elijah. The Original grabbed Damon by the arm, wrenching it back, breaking it and stared hard in his eyes.

"Stop fighting Damon. Stay away from her," he compelled him and Damon fell to the floor when he released him. He sat there breathing hard and snapped his arm back into place.

Elijah spoke slow and smoothly. "We will get her to reverse the spell Damon. It's going to be okay. However long it takes we will keep her trapped, in the dark even just like Elena is feeling right now, until she complies."

Greta had fallen to the floor, her hands now bloody from the glass around her. She rubbed at her throat and coughed more with her hands still cuffed together. "He saved me! He is the reason I stayed with Klaus!" she screamed angrily at Damon. "I owed him everything! Klaus could not channel that kind of power to destroy his father. Altering Elijah drug's effects did exactly what it was supposed to do. Klaus left. But this is bigger than any of us, even Klaus."

Luka had jumped up and was wrestling with Elijah, telling Damon to leave his sister alone. Elijah pushed him back, making him sit back down by the door. He was shaking his head wanting to fight Damon when before he was scared of him.

Damon felt his body comply to the Originals demands as he sunk to his knees, his body unable to move due to the compulsion.

But then Greta's voice made him turn to her again, things happening almost in slow motion. He saw Stefan shaking his head, laying sprawled out on the floor and pulling a piece of wood from his leg that looked to have come from the broken chair by the corner.

"I fulfilled my debt to you Maddox. The spell is sealed by my blood sacrifice, broken only by your blood," she whispered, seemingly to herself.

Damon heard her mumbling, having no idea what she was talking about.

Greta looked like she was looking right at someone in front of her when no one was there. "The doppelganger will be yours now...goodbye my love." Her hand moved fast and before anyone could react she stabbed a piece of glass into her neck, blood spraying out in fast strong spurts!

Damon fought his own body to move, fight, reach her to no avail. He was trapped by the compulsion barely a foot away from her as her body jerked and the blood gushed.

Sealed by her blood sacrifice? Meaning it could have been reversed if she didn't die? Sacrifice! Oh God. He fought even more to get to her.

Stefan sprung into action, seeing Damon frozen and Elijah just turning back from Luka on the floor by the door. He had his wrist to his mouth, tearing the skin apart. But he had been thrown halfway across the room and it took him precious seconds to reach her, forcing it to her lips.

It was too late. She was still, her eyes dead and empty as the blood dripped back out her mouth. Stefan fell back from her body, his knees buckling. Luka let out a scream of horror seeing his sister kill herself right in front of them!

Damon watched Elijah spin back fast as Stefan was racing for her and grabbed for Luka, hiding him against his chest as he fought to pull away. He protected him from seeing her dead. He had already lost his father today and now his sister. How much more could the young warlock survive?

The dark haired vampire was staring open mouthed as the scene in front of him. Her death sealed the spell? He wasn't thinking of the witch or their family as sad as that all was.

He was focused on Elena.

His head hurt more thinking about what Greta had said, running in it over and over in his mind. Something wasn't adding up. The way she talked about Maddox, the dick that almost raped his girl...it sounded like he was still alive?!

Elijah released Damon from the compulsion right away and Damon stumbled back to his angel. He knelt at the edge of the bed and stroked her hair with his palm. He let his head fall down to the soft sheets and nuzzled in by her shoulder.

That monster could not be alive. He had ripped him apart with the ax the first time and then a wooden stake the second. How the fuck could he be alive? He couldn't be a vampire...Damon had staked him in the heart the second time he killed him. But how the hell had he even come back from the first time?

Lifting his head he went over it again. "If he's alive...Elena can come back..." He looked desperately at Stefan like his brother somehow had some magic answer for him. "If he's dead, there is no way to get her back ever. So after everything that psycho did to Elena and I, I am somehow hoping he isn't dead?"

Stefan knelt down beside him and put his hand on his shoulder. "Who is he Damon? What happened?"

Damon cringed at even the thought of that creep. "When I ran from the cabin, with Elijah to allow you and Elena to escape...he found me. Him and a bunch of crazy ass vamps and he almost killed me Stefan. He held me up against a tree unable to move as one of Klaus' vampire's took an ax to my head.

Stefan's eyes bulged at that.

"Yeah that would have been my end, but wolf boy Lockwood actually saved me and we killed the other vamps and I ripped apart the witch. I watched him dying, his body in shreds. He threatened Elena and that he would use the ax on her when he found her."

Damon's voice rose in his own fear of remembering what happened. "He said he would kill our babies Stefan. So I tore him apart and left him to die. But that isn't even the half of it."

Stefan sat back on the chair beside the bed. "There's more?" Damon nodded slowly, not sure how much he really wanted to share with him.

"This was all when you had told Elena to run, back at Bonnie's car and she by some miracle found me in the woods after I thought I killed that creep. But when I led her away from all the dead vamps I saw his body wasn't there anymore. I needed to get Elena out of the woods, not knowing where Klaus was or how many other vampires he had compelled to find us. We hid in a cave and um, we got cornered by Maddox again.

Stefan furrowed his brows and Damon saw Elijah was listening just as closely as he calmed Luka down and had gotten a nurse to come in and give him a sedative. Some orderly's had draped a sheet over Greta's body and were cleaning up the blood streaking the walls and floor.

"You hid. Instead of ran?" Stefan asked. Damon nodded not wanting to get into more. Stefan didn't need to know what they were doing and how monumental of a mistake it had been to stay and hide and be with her one last time as she had said. She had begged him, pleaded and he was practically powerless to the lure of those deep brown eyes. He knew they should have run, but who knows if they might have gotten in worse danger that way either. He had no way of knowing what else could have happened.

"Maddox hurt her and held me back with his witch powers. Elena was terrified and he cut her and felt her belly, sensing the babies. Jeremy got there just in time and staked him and I stabbed him over and over, after snapping his neck. He was dead Stefan. There is no way he should be alive..." He felt his breath catch in his throat, as a shiver ran up his spine. "But now I'm actually wishing he is..."

"Alive?" Stefan finished for him and he nodded, taking Elena's hand in his and rubbing his thumb along her skin.

"But even if he is alive I have no way to reach him...he could bring Elena back but who's to say he wouldn't kill me and just keep her and my babies for himself." Damon swallowed a sob wanting to be let free. He needed to be strong. One thing at a time. He could not worry about what would happen to him. He needed to focus on bringing her back. That was what mattered.

Damon moved lower, gazing down at her face, his eyes moving down her body till her stomach. She was still wrapped in blankets and towels and he gently moved them aside, his cheek flush with the skin of her belly. He closed his eyes again concentrating on the soft, fast heartbeats that even his vampire hearing could barely pick up. The sound filled his senses and he basked in it like he was laying in the sun.

Nothing else about her showed him she was alive. Nothing but those tiny heartbeats and her slow and steady one faint in the background. He lay there silently, kneeling on the floor, his head on her belly. Stefan moved back to give him some privacy and Elijah was escorting a nurse pushing Luka in a wheelchair to another room. He was almost asleep and then at least the grief would give him a reprieve till morning.

Damon laid there, on her stomach soaking up the strength of the 3 lives hidden almost even from vampires. He didn't even know what time it was. It had a been such a cloudy and dismal day out that no sunshine had been streaming in from the windows at all. It looked dark now like it was night again.

He ran his thumb unconsciously around his finger where he would always have that giant ass daylight ring. He had grown used to it and grateful for its protection but now with it being missing, it was just another mystery and more of a risk for him to be out anywhere without it.

A dull buzzing sounded from on the floor and repeated its sound, as he lifted his head to see Greta's phone beside her dead body was vibrating. The light of the screen shone against the white floor as it buzzed again.

Damon crawled toward it from his knelt position by the side of the bed. Turning it over he saw it flashing unknown number again. Who could be calling her?

And then he knew before he even answered it…Part of him did not want to know and the other part of him needed to know. He used her thumb like before and held his breath...

Clicking accept for the call Damon heard a pause as he wasn't sure he should alert the caller that he was not Greta. He could hear breathing on the other end of the line. He held his tongue, his heart skipping a beat. C'mon...speak, he said to himself, daring the other person to reveal themselves.

Finally after another pulse pounding second a voice came through. Damon would not forget how sick that voice sounded remembering him kissing down Elena's bare shoulder as he told Klaus he had no idea where they were.

* * *

 _He knew that voice...he did._

 _"Well I see you found her," the man said smoothly. "You two are so cute."_

 _Damon backed away more keeping Elena behind him as he felt a chill up his spine at who had found them. Fuck, this could not be happening. "I killed you witch," he hissed out._

 _The man stepped closer still, a smirk on his face. "Yes Damon you nearly did. You left me to die after chopping me up. You think I am going to let you forget that?!"_

 _Damon's eyes widened as he glared at him. "How in the hell are you alive? You were unrecognizable? I watched you dying." He felt Elena trembling pressed up against him and he had a flash of his nightmare when Klaus found them and interrupted them while they were making love. It was just a horrible dream but this felt exactly like the insanity of his nightmare._

 _"Well that is my little secret now isn't it." The witch took another step toward them and then looked down and then pointed his flashlight to the ground. Damon sucked in a breath seeing him pick up Elena's jeans. "What do we have here?" He then shone the light back up at them._

 _"None of your fucking business," Damon spat out at him, his arms back behind him keeping her safe. This psycho was dead? He had slammed that ax down on him over and over. How was he standing there in front of them?_

 _"And here I thought after what I had said I would love to do to your girl, that seeing you found her you would race away as fast as you could to keep her safe." He tilted his head to the side the flashlight going around Damon's body no doubt trying to see her._

* * *

Damon shuddered remembering the warlock ripping him away from Elena. He was slammed against the opposite wall and held there with what felt like cement on his chest as Maddox kept his hand up, his powers flowing. He felt frozen in his thoughts as the voice said Greta's name again and waited for her reply.

* * *

 _"You know, I should probably call the boss and let him know right where you are..." He whispered as he stood in front of her. He turned his head back to Damon, and then back to her as he heard the vampire still struggling against the wall fighting the hold on him. "He wants you and won't stop till he has you, sweetheart."_

 _"Don't please," Damon begged him. He couldn't get free and he had no way to protect her. He felt the pain from the bite spreading too and he knew it was getting worse. He needed to be strong. She needed him._

 _There was a buzzing of a phone echoing in the dark cave. The witch pulled his phone from his pocket and looked at the caller id. His lips curled into a smirk. "Speak of the devil."_

 _Damon gasped out loud that he would tell Klaus right where to find them. He struggled harder, fighting the invisible grip on him shaking his head wildly that he not tell him._

 _"Maddox here," the man said casually as he walked back up to Damon just grinning from ear to ear._

 _"Mmm hmm," he was staring right in Damon's rage filled red eyes as he spoke. "No, I haven't found him yet."_

 _"No, a just a bunch of dead vampires. But that Damon vamp you asked me to find must have put up a hell of a fight. There was blood and dismembered vampires all over."_

 _There was growling and cursing on the other end of the phone "I have been all around this damn lake and he is nowhere! He has the doppelganger I am sure of it! I took out my brother, he will not be a problem for us," Klaus snapped through the phone much louder. "Was there any sign of the girl with him at all?"_

 _Maddox slowly strode back across the cave and picked up the bra he had tossed back on the ground. "No boss, no sign of her." His grin gleamed in the darkness, showing off his white teeth as he twirled it in between his fingers._

 _Klaus was speaking quieter now. The dark haired man dropped it again and advanced on Elena still pressed up against the wall and trembling. "Yes I definitely think they are together." He leaned in and ran his lips over the bare skin of her shoulder and nearly groaned at how good her skin tasted. "Yes boss. Yes, I know how important she is to you."_

 _He lifted his head, his dark eyes on hers. "I have no idea where she could be," he smirked as he licked his lips before descending his lips to her body again, this time kissing her chest just above her hands._

 _He nuzzled his face in her hair. "Mmm hmm, I will call you the minute I find them. They can't have gotten away. They are probably just hiding somewhere. I'd check the far side of the lake again. I think I saw an old shack there." He ended the call and turned his head back to Damon._

 _"I will kill you, and rip your fucking heart out," Damon spit out at him still fighting the hold he had on him. He too had waited till he was off the phone so Klaus would not know where they were. But he was seething at what the creep was doing to Elena._

 _"I thought you wanted me not to tell him where you were? That doesn't sound like gratitude Damon," Maddox grinned at him._

* * *

Damon shook himself from the horrific memories as that voice. That sick, disgusting voice was speaking through the phone. He was very much alive!

"Greta, are you okay darling? I finally got my hands on a phone and I have a plan. Please say you are coming with me."

Damon felt shock, rage and fear all at once at hearing him alive. He also felt hope as slim as that was. Hearing his sick voice at the very least meant they could still use his blood.

He swallowed hard shutting his eyes. He heard the warlock calling for her again sounding even more worried. He needed to say something or they could lose him. "She's not able to come to the phone right now witch," Damon hissed out.

There was silence on the other line as he waited for a response. "My, my. _Not_ who I was expecting but I can assume then that you know about needing me."

Damon was gripping the phone so tight as he took in another shaky breath. "Yes, I know. Your girl was loyal to you though. Her brother filled us in on how we need your blood for Elena."

"Was..loyal?" the warlock mumbled. "I can feel she is already gone. She told me that if she was captured she wouldn't let them win. She would take her own life and I can only assume that is what she did, unless you killed her Damon?"

"No, I didn't kill her," Damon said quickly. He was terrified that if Maddox thought he killed his girl that he wouldn't save Elena. But he knew he wanted her for something more, something bigger than Klaus, Greta had said.

"Bring the doppelganger to me. Just you or you will never find me again," Maddox whispered. "Leave your brother and the Original brother out of it and bring her to the Old Mill outside of town in 15 minutes. If I see anyone, anyone but you...I'm gone."

Damon knew Stefan could hear him but looking back at his brother he nodded silently. "Okay. I'm coming. Please don't leave." He was already looking around wondering if he was being watched. He didn't think Maddox had run into Stefan at all, so how would he know anything about him even having a brother.

The phone went silent and Damon tucked it into his pocket. Stefan was already asking him more questions but he had no idea what to say. "You heard him brother. Stay here. I have to go alone if I have any hope of getting her back. Stefan was already shaking his head and arguing more.

Damon looked sadly at him, putting his hands on his shoulders. "You have already done so much. Please know I'm really sorry Stefan." And the next second as his brother was still shaking his head, he had snapped his neck and Stefan slumped to the floor beside the bed.

Looking around the room, Damon was the only one there except Elena still in her sleeping beauty coma and Greta's body was on the floor. Elijah had left and now if he hurried he could get out of there without being seen.

He knew this was crazy and dangerous and he might not come back alive. He hated taking Stefan out but he could not risk him trying to save them and Maddox seeing him. He had to go alone, as much of a suicide mission as it was.

Damon dressed Elena quickly, in jeans and a blue camisole and long sleeved blue shirt. He wrapped her in his jacket and blurred out of the room, past the cops guarding them and out the doors of the hospital.

* * *

He arrived in less than 10 minutes at the Old Mill and slowly walked up the gravel, hearing it crunching beneath his boots. Damon saw the shadow of the warlock standing in the doorway and he drew in a deep breath, forcing himself to push forward despite everything in his body telling him to take her and run.

Walking forward, Maddox let him by and Damon carried her in to a dimly lit room that looked like an office for the Mill. Maddox didn't say a word and motioned him to put her down on the desk. Damon hesitated and didn't want her out of his arms at all. He had already not had been given time to even tell her what was happening and now he was frozen, not wanting to let her go at all.

Damon looked around...there wasn't another soul around. It seemed to be just him and the warlock. Maddox had not even reacted to Damon killing him, twice. He had half expected to be neck snapped the second he got there. But so far the dark haired witch was silent and that felt even more menacing.

Very, very carefully Damon laid her down and kept a tight hold of her hand and moved to stand by her head, stroking her hair between his fingers over and over to calm his rapidly beating heart. He saw the warlock pull out a gun of some type from his jeans leveling it Damon, before laying on the desk beside Elena.

Maddox still had not said a damn word, moved toward them and ripped a cut down his palm with a knife and held it out, looking back up at Damon. The vampire nodded and the warlock let it drip onto her parted lips. The rich red substance slipped into her mouth a drop at a time as Damon watched. He felt ready to leap into action but also scared of what could happen and what else the warlock wanted.

But before he could react one way or another he felt sharp pricks on his neck and his hand went up to feel and pull out two small darts. Vervain darts. Damon felt his legs weakening beneath him but but he struggled to stay standing.

It was no surprise that Maddox would want him weakened and he fought the effects of the vervain, to stay with her. He had been drinking more and more lately so it didn't take him down like before. His hand was tangled in her hair as he fought to stay standing.

Damon nearly jumped back, in the next second, feeling her head move! It felt surreal to watch as his loves eyes started to open and she blinked and groaned. It had worked!

His heart was tearing him from joy to absolute terror at knowing that her waking up was incredible and a miracle, but also to find them both literally held captive by the monster that tortured her would be horrifying. That was why he had at least wanted to tell her what was going on first. But there had not been time.

A phone rung in the silence and Maddox had moved away from them to answer it. Damon had been so grateful for even just a few minutes to be with her by himself. He was far too weak to take her and run. The office had only one door and the warlock was standing right outside it, between them and any kind of freedom. There were no other doors or even a window to jump through to escape.

Damon watched as she moved to sit up and looked around. He could not help but smile at those big beautiful brown eyes as they focused on him. He had no idea what the next few minutes or even hour held for them but she was alive and at least they had a chance.

"Damon?" she breathed out, her color coming back as she saw him and instantly moved toward him. He enveloped her in his arms, feeling the warmth of her alive, the strong powerful beating of her heart against his chest.

He felt his body weakening more, fighting the effects of the vervain and he slumped down to the floor. Elena was at his side crawling into his lap right away. At least she hadn't seen the warlock yet. He had no fucking idea how to tell her about him still being alive.

"Damon, what's wrong? Are you okay?" Her hands were all over his face and he moaned at feeling her fingers in his hair. He was too weak to get them away or to fight the witch who just brought her back to him. So he settled on holding her tight and feeling her warm body against his.

He nodded slowly that he was okay. "Vervain," he mumbled and she looked worried. He cupped her face in his hands, gazing deeply in her eyes. "It's going to be okay angel. I don't know how but you are awake and that's all I could have dreamed of baby. I'm so sorry I left you in the dark."

She was shaking her head and moved in to kiss him, pressing her lips to his and he groaned pulling her closer. He had to tell her, warn her who had them. She deserved to know.

"Elena, I'm sorry. I had no choice to get you back. We aren't out of the woods yet." He was stroking down her hair as he spoke so softly. "Klaus is gone but his witches want you for something. I don't know what, but bringing you to him was the only way to wake you. I'm so sorry. He is alive Elena. Maddox is alive. I'm so sorry."

Elena looked at him in confusion, her hands wound around his neck, clinging to him. Damon heard the sound of the phone clicking off and then footsteps coming closer. The door creaked back open as Maddox stepped back into the room.

Damon felt her grip on him tighten as she let out a cry of shock and fear. Her mouth was open but she looked to have no idea what to say. He pulled her in closer to him as he lay on the floor beside the desk. Elena had taken one look at the man that just entered the room and spun in his arms, spreading her own around him, her back to his chest, protecting him from the enemy in front of them.

He heard her heart racing as she clung to him and he wrapped his arms around her more but she held on stubbornly, shielding him from the monster advancing on them. She was trying to protect him? Well he was much more scared of what the witch could do to her.

Was this when they killed him and took her away? He wanted to hold her longer. He had just gotten her back. Would his family ever be safe?

Maddox motioned them both with his vervain dart gun. At least it wasn't wooden bullets. "It's time to go. Help him up," he ordered Elena. She still lay covering him as much as she could with her own body and Damon was in awe of her bravery. Elena lifted his arms and moved slowly to help him, putting her arm under his and pulling him from the floor. So they were not just going to leave him there?

The warlock nodded, motioned with his gun again. "Yes both of you, up now!" They complied and Elena held him up enough to move out of the room and back outside. Damon had wrapped his jacket back around her as he stumbled toward the van that stood idling on the parking lot and Maddox motioned them both into the back.

He slammed the doors closed and Damon heard a lock click in place before he moved to the drivers side and got in. Looking around Damon could see it was some kind of prisoner transport vehicle with a strong steel cage in the back with room with for two in the front sealed away from the prisoners. Elena lay against him in the back on the cold metal floor.

With the jolt they started moving and he felt her curl in closer to him. He held her, his hand over her head as she lay in his lap, her face buried against his neck, her body still wrapped in his jacket. Damon could feel tears dripping onto his skin and he knew she was crying. He could not imagine how scared she must be after what she had already been through with this monster.

"Elena," he breathed out. Her eyes shone in the reflection of lights outside. He wiped a tear from her cheek and kissed her tenderly. "It's going to be okay baby. I will get us out of this. I promise." He nodded to her, caressing her cheek. "Okay?"

She nodded and sniffled back more tears. "I trust you Damon. I'm just so scared. He could kill you. I thought he was going to, coming at us like that."

He pulled her in against his cheek. "I'm okay. At least we are together Elena. I know you are scared, I know."

Maybe he could wait and hope the vervain effects would fade. He had to find the strength to get her to safety. He had no idea what the warlock had planned and did not want to find out.

Back at the hospital he told himself he didn't care what he had to do to get her back. If it was a suicide mission then so be it. But now he had her back, in his arms, alive and warm and full of life.

He didn't want to die. He wanted the life he dreamed for her with him and their babies...and he was going to fight like hell to get to that...

* * *

 **A/N:** **I hope you liked the two chapters in one night! We don't know why the witches want her or why after Damon seemed to have killed him twice how he is still alive. Or is he? Who was he talking to on the phone? What will Stefan do when he wakes up? Will he get to them in time? Where is Maddox taking them? Damon needs to find a way to get her safe.**

 **Thanks so much for taking the time to read and support my stories.**


	6. The Darkness Before the Dawn

**Longer update this time. Enjoy!**

* * *

The armored truck shook with each bump on the road as it sped on through the night. The jolts each time startling Elena as she lay against him. He could feel her trembling in his arms. He had his jacket around her shoulders but somehow his fiance was still shivering. Damon rubbed his hands up and down her arms under the jacket, trying to warm her however he could. Her head was resting against his throat, her hair spread out in waves across his shoulder.

He wanted her to know things were going to be okay. He had not even thought much past Maddox reviving her, if that had actually worked. And it had and the 3 most precious people in his world were back safe with him and not facing the deep, dark emptiness of death.

Damon wanted to soothe her with more than his arms around her. He needed her to know that somehow they would survive this too, just like they had survived every other insane thing that had been thrown at them in the last few days. But right now, huddled together in the darkness he had no idea what else to say. He had no idea where they were going or what the witches wanted with them at all.

There did not seem to be any way to reach Stefan and he had tried, crying out in his mind over and over. Before, Elena had been able to hear him too, back at the cabin before it exploded and ripped her away from him. And now nothing.

Maybe the witches muted the connection they had. Or maybe they were too far away for Stefan to hear anything. Or maybe Elena was too weak from blood loss to hear him in her mind. He had so many questions and few answers.

Having his daylight ring missing was making his unease worse with each passing minute. Knowing he was being brought closer and closer to sunrise and certain death if he was out anywhere in the open then was not something else they needed now. He knew he had dropped it in the grass back at the boarding house. Had someone taken it? What the hell had happened to his ring?

His gaze focused in on his bare finger and he flexed his hand. If he did not get that ring back and soon…

Damon's eyes darted back to the warlock, his eyes on the road, only glancing back every so often to check on his prisoners. He kept Elena down on the floor, away from the creeps eye-line and had her turned away from him as she lay curled up in his lap.

Damon narrowed his eyes, studying their enemy. He didn't seem nearly the vengeful supernatural being he had been when he had trapped them in the cave. Maddox looked contemplative, sad even and just drove on through the night.

Elena shifted in his arms, nuzzling her head lower to rest on his chest. Damon sighed. He thought it had been a suicide mission to bring her back. He had been prepared to die to make sure she and his babies would be alive. Stefan could take care of all of them. All he had cared about was bringing her back.

Now though looking down, he saw a small smile on her lips when her head lifted and she met his gaze. She was here, breathing, moving, smiling at him and he could not be more grateful.

It felt like he had been given a miracle, a second chance to be a father and a husband and it made him more determined than ever to get them safely away so she could be cloaked and protected...from Klaus, Maddox and even Mikael too if anyone would come looking for the doppelganger and their twins.

It took him a long time to get her to stop shivering and once she was finally still, he heard soft breathes grow deeper against him. He realized she was asleep and not shaking from fear or the cold anymore. Damon held her cradled to his chest, feeling her arms loosely around his waist.

They drove on for hours more, the street lights illuminating her face as they went up and down her body. The darkness hid them from the eyes of the warlock up front but Damon could still see her with his very weak vampire vision. Her lashes looked relaxed in sleep, her soft lips pursed together. Damon leaned in to brush a strand of hair back behind her ear as he held her close.

He had no idea what awaited them but at least they were together. He would die for her...he knew that without a doubt in his mind.

But he didn't want to die...he wanted to live for her. He wanted the future that seemed so impossible days ago and was now within his reach. Love, marriage, a family...things he barely ever even let himself dream of.

Slowly she started waking up and he stretched his arms and legs as she untangled herself from him. Sitting up more he saw her blink in the near darkness and roll her neck that must have been stiff from being in the same position for so long.

He reached out and stroked her cheek with the back of his hand, smiling softly at her. Damon was just about to ask her how she was doing with everything when he suddenly felt the truck jolt and make a fast right turn before stopping under a ceiling of dim lights.

Standing up to look around he saw they had pulled into a gas station. It looked practically abandoned. There was lone clerk sitting by the window in the building but not another soul was around. He heard the warlock get out and slam the door, moving to fill the tank.

Elena had jumped as the door slammed and he sunk back down to his knees and cupped her face in his palms. "Elena, I know you are scared. But I need you to trust me and I promise we will take the first chance to get out of here."

She nodded without a word and buried herself back in his arms. They held each other tight and Damon closed his eyes saying over and over that it would be okay. He could hear her shaking breaths as her arms now clung tight to his waist, her fingers finding their way under his shirt. He had no idea what she had all been through since she had looked like she drowned. Had she been trapped in the darkness the whole time? He could not imagine how scary that would have been.

The door swung open a second later, the wind from outside rushing in. Damon had his hand around her head, turning her away from the warlock now standing there in front of them. He heard her gasp and scrambled to protect him too, twisting in his lap to shield his body as Maddox stepped closer. They were both curled up as far from the door as possible in the small space.

"Out...now...Elena," he ordered, motioning with his hand. His eyes were dark and intense in their gaze at them.

She was shaking her head at him. "No...don't make me leave him. What are you going to do to Damon?" Elena cried out.

Maddox looked impatiently back at her and slammed his hand on the door again without answering her.

Damon was trying to pull Elena more behind him but she stubbornly held her body in front of his. The vervain should have long faded in making him so weak and yet he still felt his muscles tight, sluggish in their response to their situation. If they were given even the slightest chance to run he would take it and then would be depending on his body to get them to safety.

He turned from Elena's steely expression and looked back at the warlock. "Please...just let us go," Damon pleaded, fighting to push her behind him with the very little strength he had. "Klaus will be looking for her and Mikael...she needs to be cloaked. That was why were were running from the cabin in the first place."

Maddox stood staring right back at Damon and sighed. "No...I can't just let her go. I have an obligation to my coven...to witches everywhere. This goes beyond Klaus and Mikael. This will finally free us from him!"

Damon heard Elena whimper and again try to protect him. He had not missed how he worded that sentence. Not mentioning needing him at all was scaring her, he knew it.

The warlock sounded impatient and slammed his hand on the back door of the truck again, as he gritted his teeth. "Get out doppelganger! This is your bathroom break. We have a few hours of driving yet. So get out now or we aren't stopping till we get there."

But she still didn't move, shaking her head back and forth again. The warlock snarled and lifted his hand. Damon grunted and groaned in pain, holding his head as he thrashed back and forth before he was force slammed against the side of the cage before falling back down.

"Stop it! No! Don't hurt him!" Elena cried out, kneeling beside him in an instant, pushing his hair back from his face.

"Then Get Out Here!" Maddox ordered one more time, his impatience clearly growing.

Damon could see Elena look back and forth at them both and he took in another shaky breath from the pain. "Let me take her...please. We won't try to run...I promise."

Without a word their captor sighed deeply again and then was nodding and motioning for them both to leave. Damon climbed out first, reaching his hand back to her. She slowly took it and let herself be led out into the cool night air and across the parking lot. He held her close, under his arm, away from the warlock and she helped him walk too, still feeling the effects of the energy blast on his brain.

The door jingled as they made their way inside and down the narrow hallway to the back. Maddox walked in the bathroom while holding Damon up against the wall with his power again. But this time thankfully it was just to keep him there without pain. He came back out and nodded to them both and they hurried into the bathroom.

The second the door closed, Damon locked it and turned back to her. His girl threw herself in his arms, her head in the crook of his neck. He stroked down her hair, holding her tight to him as he looked around. He knew Maddox would have checked out the room to make sure they could not escape somehow. There were really small windows open at the top by the ceiling but way too small for any adult to climb through. There was no way out.

After a minute of holding her, Elena moved away from him and into one of the stalls. She was back and washing her hands quickly and he did the same after double checking that the door was indeed still bolted.

He came back to the sink and saw her standing there waiting for him to wash up. He had not even dried his hands yet and he felt her moving in between him and the counter.

"Damon, kiss me. I know it wont stop what's happening. I know we can't escape here but I feel safe with you and I'm not ready to leave this room yet..."

He was watching her, seeing the fear in her chocolate eyes and the drawn lines of her face. He dove in, his wet hands tunneling into her hair as his lips crashed hard onto hers. Her hands came up his sides, under his shirt, her nails scraping his bare back. He slipped his tongue between her soft lips and she whimpered into his mouth.

Cradling her head he reveled in the taste of his girl. She was right, they needed this. He would do whatever he could to help her feel safe.

This dingy bathroom right now was their heaven, hidden away from the hell waiting just outside the door. He was determined to take every second they had to soothe her and calm her fears. She was shaking in his embrace and he scooped her up under her thighs and lifted her onto the counter. Her mouth was so sweet, her kisses soft and yet so urgent as she slipped her tongue in his mouth too.

There was a banging on the door now and Damon cringed as he felt her freeze in his arms, breaking away from his kiss. All the fear came rushing back. He cradled her head as the banging grew louder and Maddox yelled at them to open the door.

Damon held her face in his hands and stared hard in her eyes. "Whatever happens baby...know how much I love you. How much I love all 3 of you." He moved one hand down to slip under her shirt to caress the skin above where his babies were safely growing.

She sniffled, resting her head to his, her own hand on his on her stomach as the banging suddenly stopped. "I love you too Damon...so much. I can't lose you. I heard what he said about needing me...but he could kill you. You are just what's in his way to getting to me!"

He shook his head and stroked down her face. "No, no Elena. Don't think like that. But stay strong and when I tell you to run then I need you to run as fast as you can...okay?"

She started nodding, tears pooling at her lashes and he bent to kiss her again, his body molded to hers, her legs wrapped around him as she sat on the counter.

The door whipped open, almost off its hinges as Maddox glared at them. "Move it now, or I snap his neck and leave your precious man here."

Damon helped her down and she curled into his side away from the warlock as they stepped past him. Damon tried to think of a snappy line to throw back at him but his mind was filled with worry for her as he felt her stumble as they hurried away to the front of the store.

Maddox was growling under his breath and the store owner must have heard the banging and was heading around the counter toward them. He had barely started to yell when Damon saw him lifted up and slammed back against the front door, shattering the glass. The man was held up by the warlock and with a snap his neck was broken and he dropped him.

Elena whimpered in fear and buried her head more against Damon's body. He felt her start to stumble again and he picked her up under her legs and carried her out the door. Stepping over the body Damon shot a glare back at the warlock but continued to head toward the steel caged vehicle as he opened the door and forced them inside. The door slammed, the heavy bolt slid in place and they were alone again in the darkness.

* * *

They drove for a few more hours it seemed like and Elena was asleep in his arms almost instantly once they got back on the highway. Damon was glad she could at least get some sleep after everything they had been through. He knew he wanted to tell her about Stefan being alive and her brother safe and what happened to Bonnie and Care but now was not the time. Now she needed to rest.

The sky was still dark as he looked out from the metal caging them in. Sunrise would be soon but he was not sure how long they had been driving. The vehicle took a sharp right turn and started down a gravely road. They were off the highway and far far away from Mystic Falls...but where?

The road seemed to wind around more before they finally came to stop and Damon could see the shadows of a mansion, built tall and strong and yet now even in the light of the headlights looked overrun with weeds and peeling paint.

Damon squinted and shifted his body to lean closer. He knew where they were! This was the same house that Elena had been taken to when Rose had people kidnap her to set her and her friend Trevor free.

They were at least a few hundred miles from home but he knew where and which direction the highway was from here and how far. He had driven here with Stefan to rescue Elena. He thought he had killed Elijah and he found her necklace and showed up in her room that night…

The drivers door slammed and again startled Elena out of a deep sleep in his arms. He bent his head to whisper to her. "Elena, I know where we are. The highway in only a couple miles away. When the door opens I will distract the warlock and I need you to run straight out into the trees behind us...okay?"

Elena looked scared. She grabbed him by his arms. "Damon he could kill you...you can't."

He cut her off, his finger against her lips. "I have to angel. For you, for our babies...I will not allow this bastard to use them or you for his own power. They could hurt our babies Elena. We have to run."

Damon could hear the footsteps heading to the back of the vehicle. It was now or never. She nodded silently in agreement to him and wrapped her arms around his neck. Pulling him in for a hard fast kiss. Damon melted to her touch. He could taste her tears that had fallen to her lips and held her head tight to his, their lips molded together for that brief moment.

The door opened and he reluctantly pulled away from her mouth fast to face their enemy. His focus needed to be on him now and finding that one second to jump him without getting his brain melted.

Maddox stood outside the back door and slammed his hand on the edge of it, just like before. Damon climbed out first, without a single word of protest. He wanted the warlock to believe that he had gotten through to them the last time and they were going to obey him right away now. He reached his arm back to Elena still curled up in the back of the cage. His expression he hoped showed her he had this. She just needed to trust him.

Stepping down from the truck he gently caught his jacket about to fall from her shoulders. Elena was standing beside him and Maddox shifted his eyes toward the huge mansion in front of them.

In that split second Damon threw his jacket over the warlocks face and pushed him back as hard as he could! Damon slammed him into a tree beside the armored truck fast and hard and he could hear it had knocked the wind out of him.

He saw Elena already taking off at a run toward the trees behind them. Good girl. He could not imagine how scared she must be but she was doing the right thing, taking herself and his babies as far away as she could.

Maddox growled and fought to be able to see. He lifted his hand and Damon went flying backwards to crash against another tree! He didn't dare want to get close enough for him to blast his brain again but instead grabbed a large broken tree branch and hurled it back at him. The branch caught him in the stomach, slamming him back against the tree and Damon could see he looked disoriented and his eyes fell shut.

He couldn't risk being close enough to kill him. He could get killed himself. He threw another thick branch at him slumped down against the tree, catching him on the forehead. The branch fell as blood dripped from the wound and Maddox crumpled all the way to the grass.

Damon was ready to sneak in closer and snap his neck now and pushed off with his weak vampire speed. But the second he had started moving toward him he heard another voice coming from the direction of the mansion...

Shit! There was no time. He dove out of sight just as the other person saw Maddox on the ground and rushed toward him. Damon was behind another tree, limping slightly on the way as his healing was taking longer with the vervain still affecting him. He had no clue why vervain he had been given hours ago was still keeping him weak. Maybe it was spelled?

He peeked around the tree hiding him seeing the man looking around, his one hand up in defense. He was a warlock too, no doubt there. The mans focus turned back to Maddox and Damon snuck further away and down through the dense foliage.

Damon had only been running barely a minute when his weak vampire hearing picked up on her rapid breathes nearby. She was panting hard when he got to her, holding her belly and Damon sunk to his knees in an instant. "Lanie! What happened?"

She shook her head, her one hand clutching her stomach. "I don't know! I was running and tripped on some roots on the ground since its so dark and when I stood back up I had this horrible pain! Damon please tell me our babies will be okay?!" Elena whimpered, her eyes in the moonlight so wide and fearful.

"Elena, we need to keep going. I'm sure they are already after us. The highway is just a mile or so that way." He was already looking around them thinking the witches would just come out of nowhere.

She nodded and held onto him and tried to run but stumbled quickly as more cramps must have hit. Damon didn't wait and scooped her up in his arms as she gritted her teeth at the pain. No no no they could not be losing their babies!

He had no clue how fast they were growing either. Supernatural might mean anything and he knew he had already felt them moving and could clearly hear their heartbeats so Elena could be a couple months along compared to human pregnancies. His babies had only been conceived barely a day ago, not months like it seemed like.

Damon mumbled any reassurances he could think of to her as he ran, pushing his own weak body to its limits. The highway loomed ahead of them and Damon carried her out onto the side of the road, looking both ways for any cars.

Elena was cringing in pain again and he was nuzzling her head with his as he watched the road. He gasped out loud in relief as an SUV made its way around the corner. Its lights shone brightly and Damon carried Elena right into the middle of the road to get it to stop.

The driver pulled the vehicle to a stop and opened the passenger window. It was an older man with a beard and a worn baseball cap on his head. He was wearing a flannel shirt and jeans "Are you guys okay?"

Damon leaned closer. He didn't even think of compelling him, knowing how weak he was and pleaded with him, cradling his fiance close. "Please help us...I think she's having a miscarriage...we need you to get us to the nearest hospital quick!" The man's eyes widened at the urgency of the situation and Damon heard him unlock the doors, motioning them to both get in.

He pulled the door open, thanking the man profusely while laying her down in the seat, leaning over to buckle her up carefully. He was not taking any chances with her not buckled up like that last time she had been in his car, right before Klaus had Jeremy standing in the road and they spun out of control.

He was just about to close the door when he heard a crack, sounding like bones breaking and whipped his head toward the sound to see the old mans head spun fast and him collapse onto the seat. Oh no!

Elena screamed and before he could even turn back to her, he felt pain, searing pain in his back and could smell his own blood. Damon sunk down to the ground, his body fighting the pain to reach her and all he could see was the terror in her eyes.

He felt himself grabbed by the collar of his black button down shirt and thrown away from the car. He rolled in the ditch before pulling his head up to see Maddox tearing the seat belt off Elena and pushed her out of the seat. She landed in the grass, spinning around from the force of him pulling her out of the car.

Damon knew the driver was dead. That crunching of bones would have been his neck and all he had tried to do was help them. He pushed his body up with his hands, ready to crawl toward her but his body lifted up only to fall back down from the incredible pain. There was wood buried in his back and he could not even reach it to get it out!

Elena was crying out for him and could hardly moved herself. He called out to her too, telling her he was coming. Glaring up at the warlock Damon tried again to get up and fell back into the damp grass. Maddox was angry but still strolled slowly toward Damon.

"You actually thought you could escape me!" He kicked him hard in the stomach with his likely steel toed boot and Damon groaned, curled up on the ground.

Lifting his head Damon gritted his teeth at him. "Oh C'mon witch. You can hit me harder than that!" he smirked up at him before the boot slammed harder against his head snapping his neck up fast with a crack. The warlock then put his foot hard on Damon's chest, pushing the stake deeper in his back from the pressure as he cried out in pain.

Damon could hear Elena nearly sobbing for him but he was happy at least the focus wasn't on her. He was the one that attempted this escape not her. And if anyone was getting punished for it, it sure as hell better be him. But the boots pressure left his chest and he gasped out for air from the stake digging into his spine against the ground.

The warlock stepped away from him and toward Elena. He leaned over her laying face down on the wet ground. Without a word Maddox pulled at her loose blue top, ripping it as he spun her around fast to face him. She had blood on her forehead and Damon saw a rock on the ground in the ditch that she must have fell against when he tossed her out of the car.

Maddox started chuckling, blood of his own on his head from Damon throwing the thick branches at him. He bent to his knees, one of either side of her hips, trapping her body under him. "Well, well, well...don't you look sexy... being all sweating, panting and bloody."

"No! Don't you dare touch her...Get the fuck away from her!" Damon yelled at him again trying to get up but falling back from the insane pressure of the stake nearly fully in his back. His body was trying to heal him with the stake still in him. Just like it had when Klaus impaled him on the tree branch.

Maddox grinned at Damon. "I told you I would find time to enjoy your girl again." He raised his eyebrows at him. "Is this what you imagined in thinking you can run away from me Damon?"

The raven haired vampire was seething, crawling on his hands and knees closer before sinking down again from moving the wood in his back. He could feel it actually scraping against his heart and tried to barely breath.

Elena was gasping and Damon could see she was still holding her stomach in one hand as the fucking witch was kneeling over her. She hadn't said anything but in a split second her hand flew up and Maddox's head snapped to the side as Elena had swung a smaller rock at him, scraping it across his cheek!

The warlock stretched his jaw and shook his head. Damon could see Elena was glaring back at him but still trapped by his body. "You do have the Petrova fire little human..." He wiped the blood dripping from his cheek onto his hand. "But that bloodline made you the perfect home for those supernatural babies of yours. And now you can break us all away from Klaus after generations have been forced to serve him!"

It looked like Maddox had just ignored her attacking him and was smiling down at her. But instead of relenting he swung his hand down and hit her on her cheek, jolting her head to the side fast. Damon heard her groan and grab for her stomach again.

"Stop...hurting...her," he gasped out between shaky breaths. "The babies...I thought you needed them alive. She could be losing them! Get the hell off her!" Damon screamed out. He had almost made it to her side crawling slowly toward her the last few minutes.

Maddox froze, no doubt taking in Damon's words. He got off her and in seconds she had scrambled to kneel beside him. She helped Damon up to sitting and they held each other tight curled up away from the warlock standing over them.

"You are right...I need them alive. I'm attacking the wrong person. So next time you dare try to run then I'll simply do this..."

His arm up, Maddox' eyes narrowed. The blast of energy was enough for Damon to fall back onto ground, writhing in pain. The brain burst was over almost before it began.

"So if we are done with the hero moves...we should be getting back." Maddox then simply motioned them in the direction of the mansion.

His gaze fell to Damon's hand and the vampire knew that their enemy was aware of just how quickly they needed to go. Had he been the one to steal his ring? Dawn was almost upon them, the sky slowly brightening as the moon fell lower in the sky. He was right...they needed to hurry.

Damon had been feeling Elena try to grab for the wood in his back but it was too deep for her to properly hold it enough to pull. Maddox leaned over him, taking some kind of tool from his pocket and with a huge cry, the wood was out and tossed to the ground.

"Move it…." he ordered and they both helped each other up.

Damon leaned in closer to her. She was not holding her stomach anymore. Had the cramps stopped? "Elena, are you okay. No more pain..." He saw her nod slowly as they walked but raised her eyes to the dripping blood from the gash on her forehead. Obviously her wounds hurt but he was at least thankful that their babies were still okay.

Maddox shoved against his back every so often likely to keep them going faster and Damon turned to glare at him. He was doing the best he could, his body healing from the massive wood nearly paralyzing him.

And that bastard had fucking hit Elena when he was sitting on her. His anger was just barely contained. He wanted to leap on that monster and tear him apart like he had done the previous day. But he did not want him to attack him more. Damon had seen how much it hurt his girl to see him in pain and he wanted to spare her anymore if he could.

Unless they got a real chance to escape and kill the warlock he would stay the obedient little hostage...for now.

Looking back Damon saw that Maddox's skin seemed to have healed where Elena had raked the stone across his cheek. There was blood but no broken skin...He wondered if any other wounds had healed too.

His head stayed down as he helped Elena quickly through the forest as his mind was racing. Was Maddox a warlock and somehow a vampire too? He didn't think that was possible. What the hell was going on?

Elena leaned in close to him, her face a breath away. "Damon are the babies...I mean I wish I could feel them, hear their heartbeats like you can." She sniffled, her deep brown eyes shiny in the moonlight. "I'm scared for them.." she trailed off.

He leaned closer too, still making sure they were walking quickly. Maddox pushed him forward again impatiently. "Angel, I wish I could tell. My powers are so weak from whatever these damn witches have done to me. I tried to feel them and since we left Mystic Falls I haven't been able too." He saw her looking up at him with such sadness in her eyes, such devastation. All she wanted was for him to reassure her that the babies were okay. He would have moved heaven and earth to do that.

The mansion was finally ahead of them. Damon had picked up his jacket from the ground by the truck on their way past and draped it back over Elena's shoulders. Damon saw the light from the sun brightening up the horizon and spreading across the trees, getting closer and closer. He walked even quicker and in a few more steps Maddox was shoving them inside. The other warlock was there just leering at them from the doorway before he closed it behind them.

He heard Elena gasp while looking around. She recognized this house too. He saw the staircase right ahead of the front door remembering seeing the pure relief on her face and running toward him. His arms had been ready for her, his smile so wide, his whole body just aching for her to hold him.

Shaking himself from the memory they were pushed past the staircase and down a narrow dusty hallway. Elena cried out and moved even closer to him, her head against his chest, her eyes tightly closed.

Damon looked ahead to see Rose, laying dead on the floor and not far from her was her best friend Trevor. They had both been decapitated and Damon felt Elena shaking in his arms as they stepped down the stairs and past the bodies.

The warlock led them to a room at the end of the next hall and opened the door, swinging it into the room. But in a flash Damon felt himself shoved hard, Elena ripped fast from his arms. Before he could turn around, the door was already slamming shut, a heavy bolt sliding across.

"No! Elena!" Damon screamed and threw himself at the door.

Maddox had pulled her away from him and shoved her against the wall beside the door. He leaned in close, hearing her crying for him and slammed the door again. Maddox was talking fast and in hushed tones. When Damon pressed himself as close to the glass-like window in the door he saw the warlock with his hands on her belly again.

Elena was squirming and trying to fight him. Scraping her nails across his face once. He held his other hand up then and Damon saw her own arms frozen at her sides, held there by the invisible force he was commanding.

"Stop it! Leave her alone Dammit!" Damon yelled and slammed the door again. He rushed the door again and again and it didn't budge. He fell to his knees still hating how little strength he had.

In the next few seconds, that felt like they went on forever, he heard the large bolt move and the door open. Damon looked up and saw her crying and being shoved into the room at him. He caught her, both of them falling back on the floor as she could not catch her breath.

What the hell had the warlock wanted then? He had been given no warning of what he was going to do and his sluggish muscles could not react fast enough.

"Hey, hey sweetness...breathe." He lifted her from his chest and looked hard in her eyes. "Breathe Elena. You need to take deep breaths. Just look at me angel and try to breath in through your nose. Try...okay?"

Elena had tears streaming down her cheeks. Her face had dirt and blood streaks all over and her hair was a tangled mess. His heart broke for her. All he wanted since falling so hard for her was to have her safe and warm in his bed. Hiding her and his twins from the rest of the world.

His beautiful girl was holding tight to his arms and gasping to try to slow her breathing. "I'm...trying...Damon..." she whimpered. Slowly he got her to take one deeper breath and then another.

Her eyes were glued to his and he nodded his encouragement at her progress. "That's it baby. Just nice and slow." He pulled his sleeve up more over his hand and wiped the blood from her head gently and stroked his fingers through the tangles in her hair. Once she got her breath under control he gently carried her to the bed to lay her down.

She grabbed him before he could let her go. "He cut me Damon...and did some weird chanting, smeared the blood around on my stomach. He could be hurting our babies!"

Damon shook his head at her, trying to reassure her and gently lifted her torn shirt. Sure enough she had blood all over her stomach. He wiped it up more with the sleeve of his shirt and then looked around for something to wash her with.

The room was sparsely decorated, with only a big canopy bed with sheer curtains all around and a small desk and night stand. He could see the windows had steel bars across them and the doors bolt had sounded huge and heavy, keeping them locked in.

Damon stood up and tried the windows, grasping a bar. He pulled his hand back fast as it sizzled on the metal. Was it vervain or were they spelled as well? Either way that was not a way out. He looked around more seeing another door on one of the side walls and pushed it open.

Looking in he saw it was a bathroom, a small standing shower and toilet and sink with even fresh looking towels hanging on the wall. Everything was either bolted down or no use to them to escape. He came back out to her after wetting a cloth and wiped it tenderly over the smooth skin of her stomach as she lay watching him, curled up in the blankets.

He didn't want her to think he was giving up. There had to be a way to break free. Stefan he was sure was looking everywhere for them too and Elijah would have helped him. His brother knew they were going to the Old Mill by The Quarry but after that how would he know where to look next?

They could do a locator spell maybe...but these assholes were warlocks and no doubt would have cloaked them from any other spells working to find them. Would Stefan even have a witch to do a locator spell? Bonnie was in coma, Greta had just committed suicide. Luka was probably not up for anything.

When she her skin was clean again he focused back on the door and likely the only way out. Grunting in anger he slammed himself against it again and again, hearing the wood cracking but still the door held strong. He fell to his knees, his muscles aching from all the exertion. He could not get them out of there.

He felt a ray of sun hit his cheek and he jerked himself back from it fast before Elena noticed.

Damn it! Now that it was daylight there was nowhere they could run anyway. But he didn't dare tell her. They had enough problems already. Sighing in defeat he suddenly found her move to his side. She slipped off the bed and crawled into his lap on the floor.

He purred at the feeling of her body so close, her fingers in his sweaty dark hair. Leaning back on the bed behind him he looked back up in her eyes, his own reflecting the deep sadness he felt at being so helpless. She now wiped the cloth over his face, cleaning off the blood and dirt he knew he had on him.

"I'm so sorry Lanie...so sorry," Damon said as she cleaned the blood from his face.

She put her finger to his lips and shook her head. "It's okay Damon...It's okay. I'm with you and that is all I need right now."

He could hear her voice shaking as she spoke. He knew she was trying so hard to be strong. Pulling her body in closer to him he studied her in the near dark room. He was on the other side of the bed, away from the suns rays but still felt she wasn't saying everything she was feeling.

He tilted her face up to his. "Baby...please tell me...were you really in the dark the whole time we thought you were dead?"

Damon heard a sob break through her tightly closed lips and she nodded slowly. "I was...I screamed for you. I could feel you holding me. I heard you crying out for me and sob when you couldn't hear the babies. But everything was dark! I had never felt so alone!"

"Oh my God Elena I am so sorry," Damon mumbled, brushing her tears from her cheeks with his thumbs. He took the cloth from her now and wiped the blood and dirt from her face as he listened. He pulled her closer, deeper into his arms too and they sat there beside the bed as she poured out her fears to him.

Sniffling she shook her head at him. "Nothing is your fault Damon. You did everything you could to save me. I remember when the cabin exploded that you spun me around and I knew you were getting hit with so many stakes flying at us."

Her eyes were soft on his, the warm brown shiny, as more tears pooled at her lashes. "You took all that on yourself to protect me and our babies. You could have died...And when I woke up after the explosion, my ears were ringing and I couldn't see you anywhere!" She pulled him in for a huge hug right then and Damon held her just as tight to his body.

However Elena wasn't done talking yet and still poured out more of how she felt in those heartbreaking moments. "I don't even remember falling Damon...I just knew you were under the water somewhere and I needed you more than I needed my next breath. I think that was why I did fall, because I remember hardly being able to suck in a breath and just gasping I was so scared for you."

He was shushing her, wanting to forget how terrified he had been when he had burst from the water and not found her on the dock. Everything felt like it happened in slow motion then. Seeing Stefan waving at him that she had gone under, diving back below the dark water and looking everywhere for her. His heart had been pounding so hard in his chest. And when he pulled her to the shore finally seeing her so pale, so much like death…

Damon shook himself from the memories and cupped her face, feeling her warm skin against his palms. He soothed the horror of the memories with the knowledge that she was here in his arms and alive. "Elena we don't need to talk about this now..." he started but she put her hands over his and nodded to him.

"Yes we do...I feel like if I don't share it with you it will eat me alive inside!" she pleaded, her big brown eyes so wide and liquid.

Damon stroked her cheek tenderly and leaned his head to hers. "Okay, okay, then tell me. Whatever you need angel. I can't imagine what you went through. But it was pure hell for me too. Seeing you in the grass so pale, so still..." he trailed off not even wanting to imagine it again. She had looked like that the whole time even at the hospital too until he risked everything to bring her to the warlock to revive her.

Elena nuzzled her head to his. "I'm so sorry you thought I was dead. I had no idea Elijah had set it all up to make Klaus leave, thinking he failed. I was screaming for you Damon and I felt you holding me. I could feel your arms around me, crying into my chest."

She sniffled and he saw more tears slip down her cheeks. "I heard your cry when you could not feel our babies. We were okay but nothing I did helped you know I was really alive. Even after hearing that Stefan confirmed that we were all alive, I needed to hear it from you to believe it. That was the only way I truly believed our babies survived. And you told me when you came into my mind and found me in the darkness Damon. You gave me hope in the sea of night all around me.

I heard Stefan wake up too at the edge of the lake and tell Elijah he thought you would kill yourself, knowing we were all gone. I felt him carry me to you and I felt you when he laid me down on your bed. I wanted so badly to come back to you Damon, but nothing I did was helping you hear me."

He stayed silent, his head still leaned against hers. They had both been through hell and she had been so alone in her fear...and in the dark the whole time.

"I felt you fall and heard you groan from the pain of the werewolf bite and tried to hold your hand in the ambulance. My hand fell away from yours when Stefan helped you touch me. I felt you cry out in pain and want to die. I could hear you crying and holding me so close Damon. After that the darkness got thicker and I couldn't hear you or feel you till you found me in my head. I thought I was losing you, being pulled away from ever feeling you again... I knew how desperate you were getting to bring me back but I felt like I was floating away."

Damon opened his mouth to say something, anything but nothing felt like the right thing to say. No wonder she had been so emotional and clinging to him. Right now she just needed to be held, and feel safe being alive.

Words had completely failed him right now. Looking back at her doleful expression made his heart ache for everything she had been through. He pulled her closer, his hand still on her cheeks, his fingers tunneling into her hair. His eyes darted from hers to her lips as he leaned in so slowly and he felt her breath warm on his face.

His mouth moved over hers, so gently, tasting the sweetness of her kiss, stoking the fire within them both. She whimpered into his mouth, sliding her hands back into his hair, holding his head tight to hers.

Damon kissed her passionately, and yet so so softly in the dark room. His love was as all consuming now as he wished it was for her, all those months ago on that lonely road.

He had no idea how they could escape from the warlocks and what they wanted with them. But right now, all he wanted was to sooth her fears. She was alive...and in his arms. His babies had survived. And that was all that mattered.


	7. So Much to Live For

**_Hi, its been awhile. Far too long and do apologize so much._**

 ** _Long authors note...I had one of the worst summers I think I have ever experienced. I suffered full on burn out physically from my job and not taking holidays for far too long. I was all excited to write so much in summer since I took the whole summer off of work but ended up horribly sick, colds, flus, aches, pains, migraines I was hit by so much so fast when I took my holidays._**

 ** _So between my burnout and family issues that send me spiraling into depression I had tried so many times to write over the summer and just felt no motivation and no joy in it. That to me was the sign I was depressed, not even enjoying something that normally was an escape and soothed my sanity. I have gotten some sweet messages from dear friends I met here lately and pushed myself to try to write again._**

 ** _I'm slowly pulling myself out of the depression and seeing a counselor too to help me sort out my feelings. It feels like I've been so weak emotionally lately and I compared it to being numb before with a vampire humanity switch off and now its like the switch flipped from all the stress and I was flooded with so much emotion far too fast and I can't deal with anything; confrontation or hurt or anything. Everything became too scary. But its getting better slowly and I am thankful._**

 ** _So thank you to those of you still here, still reading and still wanting more Delena. I wondered too if people after the show has been over even wanted more stories and to keep them alive longer. I missed them too and disappearing into their world but everything became too hard. Everything except basic survival._**

 ** _I hope I still have people reading my stories. I have so much more to share and I want to write more of their human life after the show too and stories with baby Stephanie Salvatore too. I want to finish this 4 book series and write the Captive of her Beauty sequel as well. I feel like with all the emotional pain I've dealt with maybe I can channel that to my writing. I even doubted over the summer if I was any good at writing at all but I am trusting that was just the bad thoughts talking and I am going to be brave and post what I had written with the promise of much more in the future. I said I would not ever abandon my stories but realized that life just told me I needed a break from everything to deal with everything in real life these last few months._**

 ** _So here is the next chapters of this story. I have 3 finished that I will post this weekend. I am eager to tell you more and keep going on other unfinished works as well. Please review, to let me know people actually are still reading. That would mean so much to me._**

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A sudden sound nearby caused Elena's eyes to fly open. She could not tell what she heard or where it came from, but it was enough to startle her from a deep sleep. Shifting slightly she hoped she had not woken him.

 _He_ was snuggled up right against her and she could not be happier to be alive and in his arms.

Damon had taken a lot of convincing to even sleep, with everything that was going on. She had gotten him to admit that he hadn't slept more than a few minutes in the armored truck or even anytime at the hospital or before then. He looked exhausted and had told her the vervain he had been given before Maddox brought her back to him was still in his system, making everything feel heavy and his muscles weak.

He sighed against her chest where he had buried his head as they slept, but did not wake up. Elena let out a shallow exhale, stroking her fingers through the strands of his silky raven hair. She was treasuring the closeness and had missed him so much when she was trapped in the dark.

Feeling him close, hearing his pain filled cries for her and their babies had been heart wrenching. She could not reach him, no matter how loud she screamed in the darkness. Elena had literally lived through hearing him think he had lost all of them. She did not think she would ever forget the sound he made when he could not find any heartbeats in her.

Now even in sleep, his palm was wide spread under her camisole, flat on the skin of her belly. He was feeling his children, just as much as he could feel her arms around him as he lay against her chest. Damon had pulled the blankets down from the bed and they had lain there on the floor for the last few hours.

She didn't know what the future held for either of them but right now she was with him, holding him tight and that was all she could have hoped for after everything they had already been through.

Elena could feel the rough stubble on his cheek brush against her skin as he had nuzzled his head partially under her shirt as they slept. Bending to kiss his head she closed her eyes. She felt safe.

His arms were around her too, holding her, protecting her and putting himself between her and anyone that came in that door soothed her so much. Damon was laying almost fully on top of her, only his legs were curled up beside hers. The rest of his torso was over her, his one hand curled behind her head, the other stayed on her belly.

Elena was so glad she had convinced him to sleep. Her precious man had balked at her suggestion right away but she had shushed him, saying this would help him protect her. She promised him she would stay, holding him the whole time and would wake him if anyone came near their door.

He had grunted and complained, laying his head down, still telling her that this was a very bad idea. All the while his beautiful blue eyes were falling more and more closed and she had to fight the urge not to laugh at how cute he looked, in case her body moving startled him more awake.

Feeling too awake to fall back asleep now, Elena just lay there in the dimly lit room. The windows were mostly covered to hide the sunlight with only a few stray beams of light getting through. It was dark enough to rest during the day and she was glad they had been given this time.

Elena had no idea what the warlocks wanted with her at all. Cutting her and chanting while smoothing the blood over her stomach? She had no idea what that did or what they might have learned from it. The creepy warlock had his hands all over her belly back in the cave and had nearly jumped back at something he had discovered about her and Damon's twins.

But what was it? She did not like being kept in the dark. How she had survived the literal dark for hours on end she had no idea. All she knew what that Damon was alive and trying everything to bring her back to him.

And he did...he found the way when there looked like there was none. She had caught bits and pieces of the conversations about Elijah's serum and none of them knowing why she wasn't waking up. Elena had banged on the walls or the floor wherever she could reach, desperately waiting for someone to hear her. Damon had his head on her stomach or nuzzled in by her head and still her screams didn't reach him.

She had started to lose hope, her voice already dry and hoarse from calling out when she finally heard him calling back! She had run in the direction of his voice and he swept her up in his arms, holding her so close. He had found her, in her mind if not in the real world yet. But it was at least something and she clung to it with every bit of strength she had then.

Damon started moving his head around on her chest and she was struck by how similar things felt back at the cabin. After he had proposed she had been laying under him, holding her finger up to the light of the morning and imagining a ring on her finger.

Now she lifted her arm and spread her fingers wide, watching the dim light catch the diamond in the ring. Damon had given her her mother's ring and she thought it was perfect. She didn't want anything big and fancy. She just wanted to be happy.

Sniffling back tears wanting to fall Elena realized that this ring might have been the only thing she had now from her family's cabin. It had burned to the ground, destroying all the treasured family items with it. All the artwork and pictures, her moms jewelry, her perfume, all their clothes...everything was just gone.

Looking down at Damon's still closed eyes she realized that her precious man had lost his baby blue Camero there too. He had said he didn't care about that at all but she knew that car did hold a special place in his heart. But he had his family back, his fiance, his twins and his brother and he said that was all he cared about.

He nuzzled in closer, his lips caressing any bare skin they found. She watched him waking up and lift himself slowly so he could gaze into her eyes. His own were still half lidded, his voice raspy from sleep when he breathed her name.

Damon's eyes locked to hers and she felt herself a puddle of aching need under his penetrating stare. Slowly a smile curled on the corners of her lips as she pursed them together watching him just hovering over her.

He bent his head and kissed slowly up the swell of one breast till he reached the hollow of her throat. She lifted her head more, allowing him more access to her neck.

"Mmm, Damon..." she breathed out as his kisses sent more and more liquid fire to her belly as he lowered his body to hers, allowing her to feel how awake he really was in that moment.

Her eyes widened at the realization and he smirked, while rubbing his hips over hers. He curled his lips in a lopsided smile. "You should know by now what you do to me Elena."

His eyes took on a more serious look as he brushed his fingers through her hair. "I'm not pressuring you for anything I promise...but just thinking I almost lost you...has me all sorts of messed up baby. I have never felt such a flood of emotions like that before. You, our little angels and Stefan...it was too much..."

Elena smiled in thanks of his awareness of her own feelings and not knowing what could happen to them, especially after Maddox finding them in the cave. But the solemness of his tone had her reaching for him, cupping his face and nodding to the tortured look in his amazing blue eyes.

"I know Damon…" she nodded, her eyes locked to his. "I never want to scare you like that...ever...again." She could feel him visibly relax in her embrace and she nodded once more, watching him nod back in silent understanding.

"Thank you...for that Elena, really." Another smile played on the corners of his lips as the velvety smoothness of his voice continued. "I was just having this incredible dream of us in my bed...back at the Boarding House...no one who was looking for us or knowing where we were. We were safe and together and hiding from the world."

Damon grinned down at her, doing his sexy eye thing at her. "Just you and me Elena..." he breathed out, smoothing a strand of hair from her cheek to tuck behind her ear.

Elena thought that sounded amazing and she wished they were there right now...in Damon's bed, away from all the danger. She smiled back, giving him her best love look. "Well don't stop showing me how much you would like that, Salvatore," she cooed. "I'm yours Damon...forever."

Damon was beaming back at her, still only supported above her by his elbows to keep his weight off her. "Forever..." he breathed out, his voice catching slightly. His lower body was molded to hers even through the layers of clothes between them. She wasn't sure what she was asking at all. She missed his kisses, his touch and everything she thought she would never feel again after she had fallen off that dock.

But the last time they had been taken away by their feelings was when Maddox had found them in the cave...when she had begged Damon to make love to her before that monster showed up.

It had destroyed her when he ran out of the cabin without her. She thought she would never see him again. And when she found him unconscious in the forest with dead vampires all around him, her first thought was that he was dead too. She had forced herself to go closer and check his pulse or to see if his heart was still safely in his chest.

When she found out he was alive, then all her emotions crashed through her that they could really die and she never wanted to leave him again. She wanted to feel everything that was Damon Salvatore...one more time. If they got caught, at least she was with him.

However now that he had pulled her back from death and they had been given this miracle chance to still be a family, she wanted that more than just the here and now. She wanted a lifetime with him and their children together. Thinking she had died had changed a lot in her, gave her more strength to fight for all of them.

She caught his head as he bent it down, his tongue darting out to lick at the shell of her ear and pulled him back up to face her. "Just not like in the cave Damon...I don't want to give that monster any kind of chance…like before."

He was already nodding to her as she spoke and she knew he understood. Because of her begging to be with him one more time, they had been caught with her practically naked when the warlock showed up.

"Okay Elena...whatever you want." He frowned, wrinkling his brows slightly. "You have been through so much… and I can't imagine how you must feel. But whatever you need...please tell me and I will do it, no questions."

She nodded and was so glad he understood her so well. Elena pulled his head down to hers, her mouth already open and eager for the taste of him. His lips were so soft and warm, enveloping hers and deepening the kiss as she moved her hips slightly under his.

"Mmm, you taste..." Elena mumbled between kisses but Damon didn't even give her a chance to finish her thought and delved in deeper, swallowing her words as he rubbed his hips against hers more roughly.

They lay there kissing and uttering the softest of whimpers and moans, enjoying the closeness but not getting more undressed. Damon cupped her breast through her clothes, molding it in his hand as she slipped her fingers under his shirt.

Groaning into his mouth she found the bare skin of his abs, her fingers unbuttoning the shirt more to find taunt muscles against her fingertips. Damon moaned, tilting her head, his kisses more hungry, more urgent as she could feel his breath panting out of him.

He moved to kiss down her neck, lapping and sucking the skin into his mouth as her head fell back in pure bliss, her hair fanning out over the pillow. His hand had snuck under her camisole and thin white tank top, caressing the aroused flesh he found. He molded her bare breast in his hand, while his lips trailed kisses back up her jaw and to her mouth, capturing her lips hard and roughly between his own.

"Mmm, Damon," she gasped out between hungry kisses. Her hands slid up his chest, seeking more bare skin too till she had his shirt all the way unbuttoned. Hers was also pulled up and she tugged his body down more, feeling the thin sheen of sweat on his own as he laid more on her.

Suddenly the silence in the air was broken by the sound of the bolt sliding fast and the door swinging open. It slammed against the wall with a crash!

Elena jumped in Damon's arms and he instantly whirled around, keeping her body behind his on the floor. She hurriedly yanked her shirt down, her arms sliding around his waist to maintain some hold of him.

She was shaking, her head leaned to his, hiding behind him but still curious what was going on. She would protect him too at any sign of the witches hurting 'her Damon'.

Elena heard his voice was steady, despite the tremble she could feel from his body against hers. "What the hell do you want?" Damon snapped at the figure hidden in shadows but still unmoving from the door way. She knew it was Maddox, even though his face was hidden by a black hoodie. His jeans were dark too, his hands in the pockets as he casually leaned on the door frame.

Slowly he lifted his head more and stepped forward, his boots heavy on the wood floors as he approached them. Damon was unmoving in his stance to protect her, his whole body between her and the warlock.

Maddox stopped a mere foot from where they were curled up on the floor beside the bed. Elena could feel Damon's muscles tense under her hands around his waist. She lay cowering behind him, her whole body trembling as flashes of them in the tomb with the wolf raced through her mind.

No! She shook her head, shutting out the images of Damon in pain, or the wolf hurting her. No. They needed to get through this so they could be a family!

They were a family already. They were in love and going to married and having miracle babies. They had so much to live for.

Maddox had not said a word since he entered the room. It made him even more terrifying when his intent was not clear. The warlock let out a deep breath, his boots scraping the floor as he knelt down in front of them.

Elena wanted to stay curled up behind Damon but she was scared _for_ him too. The warlock had never said a word about needing him for anything they wanted.

Maddox shrugged his hood off, shaking his closely shaved head before settling a hard stare on Damon. "It's time," he said simply, his voice devoid of any emotion.

Elena felt her fiance literally freeze at those words. The chill that came over her body felt like it went right through to her bones. Time? Time for what?

Damon was already shaking his head back and forth slowly, casting a quick glance her way. He looked torn apart inside and she could see his emotions warring so clearly in his eyes.

He looked like he could leap forward and rip the warlock apart in the next second or fall down begging for him to hurt him and leave her alone. Either choice she could not handle. She couldn't see him in more pain. After the video Klaus showed her of how close to death her love had been before, she couldn't handle more. He was too precious to her.

Damon's arms were wide around her, keeping her behind him. Elena could see the veins under his eyes start to swell, as his eyes flooded with blood. He did not move from where he was shielding her from the warlock towering over them.

He was going to attack him, she knew it… and Maddox could kill him!

Jumping to her feet Elena held up her hands. "Okay! I'll come! I will. Please don't hurt him..." she pleaded.

Damon was up and in front of her in an instant and still shaking his head. He was not going to let her just hand herself over, she could see that. But she couldn't risk him getting hurt again either.

Maddox looked upset, like back when they tried to escape. She had no idea what he was all capable of.

Damon was refusing to look at her, even when she started tugging on him to let her go. His eyes were locked on the warlock's, his bicep muscles twitching under her hands on him.

"No...we go together or not at all witch!" Damon snarled at him. "I'm not letting her out of my sight."

Maddox started raising his arm and Elena was again trying to push past her love as Damon held her tight. The witch's arm went up fast and a loud crack echoed around the room!

Elena had barely made out that it was a gun in his hand before Damon started sinking down to the floor.

"No!" she screamed out and caught him in her arms as he fell. His near dead weight took her down too as he lay unmoving on top of her. Elena scrambled up to cradle his head in her hands. What happened?! She gasped out as she saw blood between his eyes and realized a bullet had sunk into his skull!

"NO, no Damon," she pleaded shaking him.

A small part of her brain registered that it wasn't his heart. A vampire couldn't die from a bullet to the head, even a wooden one. So he wasn't dead.

Elena ran her fingers through his hair, smoothing it back from his face as she felt tears pooling at her lashes. Cradling him against her she put her head to his chest, hoping to at least hear a heartbeat.

She was so focused on him that she didn't see or hear Maddox moving till he had already stepped forward and grabbed her by the hair, yanking her head up. "I said...it's time. You need to move now."

Elena nearly whimpered from the pain of his fist clenched in her hair as he motioned toward the door. She glared fire up at the warlock and felt her heart racing in the realization they were now alone in the room. Damon couldn't help her...not now.

Maddox pulled harder on her hair, his head motioning toward the door. "Now...if you ever want to see him again. Get up now!"

Elena cried out and felt herself hauled to her feet. Damon's body fell to the cold wood floor in front of the bed they had made with the blankets. Standing up she shook herself from the mans hold and raised her hands. "Alright! I'm coming!" she snapped, her eyes still glaring hatred at him.

Her focus stayed on Damon's still form as she snatched his jacket from the bed and started backing out of the room. Maddox stormed after her and slammed the door behind him. The sound of the large bolt was loud in her ears as he locked Damon in, away from her.

* * *

Elena was shaking, and pulled Damon's jacket tighter around her, slipping her arms in the sleeves as she was led down the hall. She could hear chanting as they walked, closer to wherever the witches were and further from Damon.

Maddox was right behind her, so close she could feel his body tall, almost looming over her. His breath was on the back of her neck as she tried to walk faster to put more distance between them. But he met her stride and stayed just behind her, only pointing the way whenever there was an alternate hallway.

They arrived at a closed door and Elena could hear the chanting was coming from the room behind it. She froze...scared of what was beyond the door. Scared of the witches harming her babies.

But before she could force herself to push past her fear, she suddenly felt hands around her throat and started gasping as she was held up barely on her tip toes.

The warlock glared angrily at her as he held her in a choke hold against the door. "Don't you get any ideas of trying to escape, doppelganger. Or you will _never_ see your precious Damon again. I'm trying to be nice little girl, but you are not making it easy."

Elena was struggling to breathe, her fingers pulling at his large hand. She nodded rapidly in understanding and his hold lessened some. Nice? He was trying to be nice? She had no idea what could happen to her in the next few minutes and that thought terrified her.

Maddox leaned in, his nose in her hair and groaned. "Mmm...you are so much like my girl..."

She froze again, hardly daring to breath as his lips brushed against the shell of her ear. Should she fight him or just stay still? Elena wanted to run back down the halls, back to Damon. She had no idea how long he would be out. He had a bullet buried in his head, but she needed him here, now.

Maddox continued to run his lips down her throat till they rested on her pulse point. His body had moved in, pressing her against the door, giving her no way to move. "Damon," she whimpered.

That was enough to pull Maddox from his apparent trance that she was not the witch from New Orleans that he had lost. The warlock increased his pressure on her neck.

"Damon...isn't here." He growled out, shaking her. "I am. It's time for you to be of some use to all of us." He grinned at her, clearly enjoying himself as she squirmed. His other hand, the one not holding her against the door slid up under Damon's jacket and under her clothes, against the bare skin of her belly. She fought more and he only increased his grip of her throat again.

Maddox's eyes looked glazed over as a slow smile crept onto his face. "Yes, yes they are of perfect age. So brand new and full of magic, yet too small to fight us getting what we want..." His palm was flat on her belly as she started gasping for air. His head was down, his focus on her stomach.

Elena was terrified at all she was hearing and feeling! She kicked up at his groin, but missed. He released his hold on her just slightly and she spit in his face. In his shock he just stared at her and she slammed her head into his. The force of the blow made her dizzy as she dove out from under his arm and started running down the hall.

But she did not get far and screamed out as he grabbed her by her hair again catching her and slamming her against the wall. Elena fought and raked her nails across his cheek and he grunted in pain. She was panting hard as she slipped down the wall to the floor clutching her belly.

No! The pains started again and she felt such searing pain rip through her body.

Maddox slammed his hand in the wall above her head, cracking it under his fist. "Enough! You lose those babies and you are worth nothing to me! Nothing!" His chest was heaving too as he glared down at her.

Elena nodded, still holding tight to her belly as the pain subsided. No she could not lose their babies! She had to trust that whatever happened they would survive. Putting her other hand up, her shoulders sunk. "Okay...I'm sorry. I will stop fighting...I promise." That seemed to placate him and he stayed right behind her as she stood and slowly made her way back down the hall.

Pushing the door open she felt a blast of warm air and blinked at the sight of a dozen or so men and woman all in a circle in the center of the room. The room was bright with candlelight spilling from every direction. There were leaves or herbs it looked like scattered around with a thin layer of salt forming the circle in which they all stood.

Heads turned her direction and hushed whispers echoed around the large space. The group opened the circle and Elena saw a chair in the center with a tall woman standing behind it. She was dressed in a simple gray dress, her brilliant white hair flowed down in waves over her shoulders as she nodded for Elena to come closer.

She stopped short of the group, seeing the woman's inviting gesture towards her and again she wanted to turn and run. But before she could do anything Maddox grabbed her again by the hair and dragged her forward and dumped her down on the chair.

Elena cowered there, hiding her head, terrified and having no idea what was happening. Maddox pulled Damon's jacket off her shoulders and tossed it to the floor as she cried out for him to stop. He ignored her and with an angry growl tore her blue camisole and the tank top apart too.

Screaming Elena saw him lift his one hand and she felt pressure on her jaw as her mouth was closed by an unseen force. He spread the torn shirt to both sides of her stomach and backed away. Elena felt her hands being tied by vines it seemed like to either side of the chair and she fought to scream again but Maddox had kept her mouth sealed, his hand still up commanding her body's compliance.

The old woman came around the chair and smiled down at her as she struggled. Elena fought Maddox's hold on her mouth. "No, please...please don't hurt my babies," she managed to squeak out. She was panting, her chest heaving, and barely covered by the torn fabric. Her eyes darted back and forth seeing the circle close and the eyes of everyone fall shut as they started chanting again.

She felt the woman's bony hand caress her cheek and she tried to jerk it away. But the warlock somehow had control of her head too and she could not move an inch. The old witch's hands lowered and spread over her bare stomach and Elena watched her eyes widen and freeze, as if she was in a trance of her own.

Elena wanted to look down, she wanted to cover her babies with her own hands but couldn't do anything. Suddenly she felt a sharp pain and then realized the woman had cut her belly and was rubbing the blood around it again, just as Maddox had. It had only been a couple days and yet Elena could swear she saw a slight bulge to her stomach too as the witch was focused there so intently.

The woman's head snapped up and she nodded across the circle. "You are right...these babies will finally free us...I can feel it...the Original's blood flows through them, just as the vampire's and the human's."

Elena watched a wrinkled smile curl at the woman's lips. "Yes...yes..." she breathed out rubbing the blood around before the witch then put her bloody fingers against Elena temples and continued chanting.

The rich red blood dripped down her cheeks in thin trails, almost like crimson tears. Elena was shaking she was so scared right then and her own tears mingled with the blood on her face.

 _Damon_ she cried out in knew he had heard her before. There was a chance he was awake already and scared for her, not knowing where she was. She wanted this to be over. It felt like it had been hours already without him.

As the woman kept speaking in Latin, Elena started feeling pain build in her head. The woman pressed her fingers harder against her head, swirling the blood in circles. Elena wanted to scream, but still felt her mouth held closed. The pain got worse and the chanting of everyone increased in volume. She could see even Maddox was chanting along, his eyes closed.

In a rush the candle flames shot up, and windows broke, the wind rushing in the room in powerful gusts. Glass flew everywhere and Elena shut her eyes tight, her arms fighting the bonds to cover her bare belly to no avail. She felt sharp stings on various parts of her body, knowing at least some of the glass found her. The wind whipped through the room before leaving as fast as it came.

Peeking out, the room was now bathed in bright sunlight from the broken windows and she looked down to see several places tiny pieces of glass had been imbedded in her skin. She felt the woman's fingers fall away and then her hands were unbound.

Elena fought the urge to just cry, she had been so scared. Was it over? The woman moved away without another word and disappeared between the other witches that had now started moving from the circle.

The young brunette sunk down on the floor against the far wall, curling into herself, not feeling safe anywhere but in Damon's arms. Pulling her ripped shirt back over her she bent to grab Damon's jacket and wrapped it around her to try to stop shaking so much. His scent was still strong on the collar and Elena closed her eyes and tucked her legs in under her.

She felt so alone and so helpless...


	8. Drowning in Him

In minutes the room was quiet and she dared to open her eyes. Everyone had left, leaving just Maddox leaning against the door. His arms were crossed over his chest, his eyes on her as she huddled against the wall.

It was not like her to cower in front of an enemy. She had usually been so strong and fought hard to show them the fight in her. But after everything of the last few days Elena did not feel any fight left. She was exhausted and alone right now and all she wanted was Damon. He made everything better. He felt more like home than anything in her world ever did.

She wasn't sure how much time had passed as she lay there with the warlock blocking her only way out. All of a sudden he cleared his throat and strode across the room toward her. What had they gotten from her? Was that all they needed and he was going to let them go now? Elena prayed it was that simple.

Maddox knelt on one knee in front of her. His hand reached out to smooth a lock of her hair from her face. She tried to back away but the wall was right behind her head. He looked calmer, almost easygoing in his demeanor toward her.

"What...what did you do?" Elena choked out, biting back pain as she felt some of the glass dig deeper in her skin as she hugged the wall. She had to know that her and Damon's babies were okay.

She got to her feet, moving slowly and carefully till she was standing. Elena still kept herself as far away from the warlock as she could. She cleared her throat, gritting her teeth and looked hard into his eyes. Not looking away from his penetrating stare she held his gaze, even when she felt like turning away and cowering again.

Maddox looked impressed by her determination and quirked a brow. "Mara the leader of our coven...she found him. He ran...after losing that vampire girl he claimed to already love after meeting her the day he arrived in your little town. But he can't run from witch locator spells without any witches at his side..."

Elena's mind was racing. She knew who he was talking about but was scared to voice it. Like that made it real and not some nightmare that she could wake up from. "Klaus?...She used my blood to find Klaus?"

Maddox shrugged, backing away so she could at least breath and leaned his one shoulder on the wall. "Among other things...The first time in his life that he forgot about us witches and that will finally be his undoing. Our leader also confirmed that your blood will break the spell and we will indeed be free of him."

Elena heard everything but was still hung up on why they needed to find Klaus. They had all just gotten away from him. She unknowingly faked her death and dragged Damon through hell thinking she and his babies were all dead.

"Why did you need to find him…?" she dared to ask.

"We need to show him we aren't a threat," Maddox replied with a glint in his eyes.

She sucked in a breath, trying to swallow her fear. "Bait...You need me to lure him out for you, don't you?" Elena asked tentatively hoping she was wrong but gasped out at his nod to her question.

"Look at you, putting the pieces together," he teased her.

They needed her to get to him...meaning Klaus would find out that she was alive!

She stepped forward fast, right up in his face. "NO! You can't! He wants me...and my babies and to kill Damon. You can't let him know we are alive!" Elena cried out.

The dark haired witch shrugged nonchalantly again, pushing her back away from him. "Not my problem. Once we use you to capture the all powerful Original, long enough to break the spell, your part will be done. Trust me we have tried to kill him but killing him would kill all of us...till we are unlinked. He has forced hundreds of us to help him for centuries and this is the closest we have come to finally being free."

He saw her fear and didn't care. Of course someone else needed to use her. Maddox smiled, ignoring her shocked expression. "Your babies blood giving Klaus unimaginable power, also has a balance and allows us to break free of him. He might not even know that but the Original Witch knew when he was created and she passed it down through generations of our kind, as one of a few fail safes I'm told is linked to the power he could unleash. We would not be able to kill him but could band together against him for the first time in centuries."

Elena felt her mouth starting to fall open at all she just heard and she clamped it shut, swallowing thickly. She had no idea so much could change from the one spell to create her and Damon's children. She pulled his jacket more around her, as if to hide from everything and everyone trying to use her for their own gain.

Maddox grinned at her. "I will finally be in control of my own damn life and the witches in New Orleans will be free too. As for Klaus killing your precious lover...you can rest assured that won't happen."

 _Damon..._ Elena let out a breath she did not even realize she was holding. But her relief was short lived as he let out a chuckle. "I have my own plans for your Romeo. He will be used to pay back a debt I owe, so make sure you say your goodbyes tonight. We leave before dawn."

Wait what? She blinked furiously, shaking her back and forth. _No,_ _she had to have heard him wrong_ _..._

He leaned in closer, forcing her back against the wall again, his palms flat on either side of her head. She felt the blood pound in her ears. "That's right...after tonight sweetheart...you're mine," he hissed, his breath hot against her face.

The words hung in the air like tiny arrows of poison that pierced her one by one, more so than the glass had already. Each arrow more poisonous than the last one. Tears sprung to her eyes instantly as she replayed every word he said over and over. _No, no, no..._ She felt like she could not even take her next breath.

He was nodding more, his wicked smile wide as his dark eyes gleamed in the sunlight. "You will be the key to getting close to enough to Klaus for us to overpower him...I _will_ offer you back to him and I know he won't be able to resist. He had been looking for you for so long, the lure of having you again will be too tempting for him."

Elena barely realized Maddox taking her arm and pulling her with him, leading her out the door and down the hall. She recognized the way back to their room but still felt like everything was spinning and she could hardly put one foot in front of the other. The large bolt was swung over, the sound snapping her from the haze of her thoughts and the absolute panic of everything he had said.

* * *

The door swung open and there he was… ' _her_ _Damon_ '.

His eyes looked wild with worry that swiftly turned to anger and he started rushing forward toward her. The witch held up his one hand and Damon froze in mid stride glaring at him. "Damn you witch!" Damon snarled, unable to move again.

Maddox ignored him and looked back to Elena, tossing a bag in the room. "Clothes for you. Both of you, if you want to change."

Damon let out a growl as he was held up frozen in Maddox's invisible grip. "Change? Change from what? "What the hell did you do to her?!" he snarled out, fighting the supernatural hold on him.

The warlock again ignored Damon's rage and raised his eyebrows in a teasing way to Elena before leaning closer to her ear. "Oh and I _could_ have stopped the glass from cutting you...but you pissed me off by trying to run so..."

Elena whimpered, feeling his breath so close as she watched Damon struggle and fight the witch's force on him. In the next second Maddox let him go and shoved her in the room without another word, slamming the heavy door closed and bolting it tight.

She fell into Damon's open arms and felt the warmth of his embrace instantly. "Damon," she breathed out, holding him tight, cringing too from the glass pieces she could feel in her skin.

Even as her mind was spinning in shock, grief and absolute terror of what the next 24 hours held she was determined to focus on him right now. Because by this time tomorrow he…

No! Shaking her head she forced the thought away, fighting to keep hold of her sanity.

"Elena, Elena." Damon had pulled her from his arms to look at her and she stared back at him wordlessly. "Oh shit baby you're bleeding. What the hell happened?" He slid his sleeve up more and wiped away the blood from her head.

In the whirl of the last things that Maddox said, Elena had completely forgotten about the blood on her head or her belly. Damon was just discovering that now and she didn't even know how to put words together at all to explain anything.

His vampire face flashed for a brief second before he slowly started parting his jacket she had held tight to herself. Deep blue eyes darted back up to her face. "Elena, why am I smelling so much blood? God baby, tell me what he did to you? I will kill him the next time he shows up."

Elena opened her mouth to reply but still nothing came out. She let him gently take his jacket off her and watched his already shocked blue eyes widen even more as he took in the blood sticky all over her stomach. He looked back up at her and she could see his rage simmering just below the surface.

Her mouth still didn't cooperate with her racing and panicked thoughts. She was scared for what he could do in reaction to what happened to her and she had no idea how to even tell him what Maddox had said. She didn't ever want to live without him and was now understanding so clearly how he must have felt when he thought her and their babies were dead.

Her lips were dry as she was just staring at him. His one hand went to her arm and she flinched, feeling another piece of glass there. Damon's head whipped around to where he had touched her, jumping back. He looked confused before she saw him see the glass piece and the thin trail of blood on her shirt.

"Jesus baby," he breathed out, his voice quivering. She watched the horror materialize on his face and he backed up more. His hand flew up, like he didn't even know where he could touch her without hurting her more. "Elena, I...how can I…?" he begged her.

Elena saw tears in his beautiful but so sad blue eyes. He looked destroyed and helpless. She knew anytime she had been hurt he would wrap his arms around her and soothe her with nothing more than the warmth of his body and his undying love. That was all she needed in the whole world to feel safe.

Damon opened his mouth but she saw he was as lost for words as she was. She tried to smile through the pain but it was obvious he saw right through that. He started to go back toward her when she whirled away from him with a sob. How could she tell him they had only such a short time left? That Damon was being ripped away from her and Maddox already said she would be his? She had no idea how to tell him that at all and instead just pulled away to try to think.

She looked around for the bag of clothes that Maddox had tossed in for her and opening the bag seeing a variety of clothes and undergarments. They looked like they were from her clothes and Damon's too. She didn't even want to think that someone else had been in her room, her space but again that looked to be the case.

Damon had backed up, looking unsure how to help her and just watched her as she winced in pain. She grabbed for the red lacy bra and lace boy shorts that were hers, from _her_ drawers. She felt more violated, if that was even possible.

Elena tried to quell the tears still wanting to slide down her cheeks while she threw the ripped clothes to the floor in anger before undoing her bloody jeans and hurling those down too. She quickly changed into the lace panties. The ones she was wearing were also stained her her blood that had dripped from her stomach during the spell. She started pulling a fresh pair of jeans up her legs but cried out as she felt more glass pieces dig deeper in her skin.

Damon's broken expression was heart wrenching as he looked like he ached to help her but was staying back not at all sure what she wanted right then. Her hand was trembling so much she was unable to get the clasp for her bra done up.

The sound of the bolt sliding back again had Elena jump back, holding her bra up covering her chest as she whirled toward the door. Damon didn't waste a second and was already racing forward as the door swung open to attack the witch. The look on his face was pure rage. He was channeling all his helplessness into anger toward the witch.

Elena opened her mouth to cry out to him as she saw him crash to the ground a second later, his head in his hands as he screamed.

"Damon!" she finally managed to call out. He was grunting in pain as Maddox walked back in the room and tossed another bag on the floor. "Almost forgot. You, human...need to eat to keep those magical babies strong and healthy." He turned to her, as she froze in his sights, still holding the bra up over her half naked body. Her jeans were on but still unzipped and hanging dangerous low on her hips.

Damon was between the warlock and her but writhing on the ground from the hold he had on him. He fought to pull his body up more she saw, to protect her, his face contorted in so much pain.

"Don't...you...fuc..." Damon growled out his eyes locked on the warlocks as he blocked the way closer to her. Elena just stayed frozen, after having backed up as far as she could away from Maddox.

Their captor took one long look up and down her body but didn't challenge Damon and come closer. Instead he held his hand up higher, his eyes wide as he chanted and Damon cried out in more pain.

Maddox suddenly kicked out, his heavy boot hard against Damon's head, snapping it backwards, sending him to the floor. "You will not beat me vampire!" he snarled, leaning over him. But instead of attacking more the witch spun on his heel and left, using his powers to close the door behind him with a crash.

* * *

Elena fell to her knees in front of Damon, groaning as he pulled himself up from the cold floor. He swore under his breath, snapping some bones in his neck back in the place before reaching for her. She again forgot about the glass imbedded in her skin, as him cradling her close as she was shaking, made her whimper out in pain.

Damon backed up from her right away and tenderly helped her do up the clasp on the bra. She grabbed another thin white tank top and pulled it on too. Elena didn't dare want to be as undressed as she had been in the cave when Maddox had first found them, especially if he could just burst back in at any time. But any fabric rubbing on her skin hurt and she started gasping in more pain as Damon gently turned her around.

Her eyes were flooding with tears as she looked back at him. "Damon...I'm so sorry..." she managed to say. She had no idea what she was all sorry about but mostly that he could not just hold her close right now. The pain in his eyes broke her apart too.

"He's gone. At least for now." Damon assured her. He absolutely looked like he wanted to wrap her in his arms, but instead stopped himself and just tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "I'm the one that should be sorry baby, not you. I know I had no choice in bringing you to him...but I'm still sorry." He looked so softly back at her, his eyes pools of sadness at her in any pain.

Damon led her to the bathroom. She leaned against the counter as he tenderly brushed her hair further back from her neck. Pulling the tank top and bra strap off her shoulder as carefully as he could he studied her bare shoulder. "We need to get these out of you sweetness," he said softly, wincing as he took hold of the first piece of glass. "Just hold onto me, any way you can."

Elena nodded and squeezed her eyes shut as he pulled at a piece and tossed it in the sink. He didn't even ask to feed her his blood, neither of them knowing what it could do to the babies. Instead he cut his finger with a fang and dripped the blood onto the open wound once the glass was out.

She leaned her head on his chest as he pulled another and another out from her upper back and neck. Elena tried not to whimper at the pain and felt the soothing warmth of his blood on the wound almost instantly after he had removed the glass piece.

Damon lifted her head, smoothing her hair back from her face, smiling sadly back at her tight expression. He bent to capture her lips with his, his kiss soft, sweet and yet so consuming that she focused on that instead of the pain.

His hands wandered her arms and back, moving the tank top aside taking out each piece methodically and dripping more blood there. His mouth swallowed her cries as they kissed, her hands sliding up his arms to wrap around his neck.

"Damon, it hurts," she whimpered, breaking away from his kiss. She was so tired of pain of any kind. She did not know how much more she could take.

He nodded at her, dripping more blood on the wounds. "I know, Elena. I know. I am so sorry. Almost done..."

He plucked another piece from her arm, healed it and then held her back to look at her, his eyes tracing each inch of her bare skin with the tank held up in front now. He found a few more pieces in the skin of her stomach and another on her other shoulder. There had been none on her lower back where the woman had been standing behind her but the glass seemed to be all over the rest of her torso and arms.

When he was done Elena chanced a look in the mirror. She nearly gasped at the all blood trails all over her body before pulling the top back down. Damon looked sad at first at her hiding her body from him. He offered her a tentative smile before turning on the shower and checking the water temperature. She wanted to get clean but she was still so scared that Maddox could just show up again, catching them like that.

"The..." she mumbled and he turned back to her. "The warlock...he could come back..It's not you at all..." she trailed off not even wanting to think about it.

He was at her side in an instant again. "It's okay., I understand baby. We just need to get you cleaned up. Whatever you need to feel safe is just fine with me Elena. I promise."

She nodded, sniffling but they both knew that if the witch wanted something they were powerless to stop him, at least if they could not take him by surprise. Her eyes went down to where he was gently tugging her jeans over her hips and down her legs.

Damon led her under the spray of the water after quickly shrugging out of his own shirt, jeans, socks and boots. At first she was shivering but he pulled her into his arms, finally having gotten rid of all the glass in her skin. His embrace felt amazing and she leaned her head to his chest as the water fell down on both of them. He held her like that, not saying a word or moving an inch, simply letting her rest in his strength.

She felt the thick wet strands of her hair smoothed away from her face as the water ran in trails down her cheeks. Lifting her head to look back at him, she fought so hard to be strong and not let her fear take over. How could she tell him what she knew? That they would be torn apart and her brought to Klaus...How?

Elena swallowed thickly, trying to hide the tears wanting to slip from where they continued to pool at her lashes. The water hid them as they started sliding down her cheeks. She bent her head back to his bare chest as sobs came up her throat and she clung to Damon, her fingers tight around his waist.

His eyes held what looked a like thousand questions when she had lifted her head to see him again. She tried...tried to tell him, but the words got lost in her choking cries as her head fell back down and she held him so tightly against her. Elena could hear his heart beating hard and strong by her ear on his chest.

She pulled on his arm and laid his palm under the wet top, on her bare belly. She hadn't imagined it. She really could feel a slight bulge already, which was crazy after only a few days. Damon's head came up and she met his eyes. "Can you feel them?" she pleaded. He had said that before he brought her to Maddox that he could feel them, hear their heartbeats. But not since they had been captured.

Damon had water dripping down from the tips of his dark hair and sliding down his cheeks and jaw. He looked forlornly at her and shook his head slowly. "No, Elena. I can't...it must be the vervain that Maddox gave me before that is preventing me still from feeling them. I'm so sorry sweetness. I tried a couple times already before when you were sleeping..."

He sounded so broken when he spoke that he could not do what she needed. Elena didn't even know why she needed to hear them so badly. Her world felt like it was spinning out of control and her mind had brought her back to that moment in bed with him, back at the cabin where he brought her into his mind to hear their babies. That was the last time she felt that kind of calm and such pure joy and she needed that again now.

Elena's chin started quivering and she could not hide from him the despair that was crashing through her. He knew her so well already and it felt like they had been together for years.

Damon lifted her head gently, one finger under her chin. His own voice sounded shaky as he leaned his head to hers, the water still streaming down their faces. "Lanie, _please_ tell me what's got you so scared. Don't hide from me...please..." he begged her.

She opened her mouth again to force the words out, but again shook her head and buried it in the hollow of his throat. His arms came around her and she wrapped her arms tight around him too. "Just hold me...please Damon...just hold me," she breathed out, clinging desperately to any skin she could reach to be as close as she could to him.

Damon did just that and held her tight, his head against hers as she cried. Elena lifted her head a couple minutes later, seeing his tortured blue gaze locked on her. She stared back at him, already aching inside at even the thought of losing him again.

He looked like he could see into her soul the way he was looking back at her. She opened her mouth to somehow tell him what she knew, but the next moment his mouth was on hers, his tongue delving between her parted lips.

Elena's mouth opened to him, swallowing his groan of her name as he pressed her harder between his lean body and the one wall of the shower. In seconds he had lifted her up to wrap her legs around his waist, kissing her so deeply she felt she was drowning in him. He held her like that, as close as he could, kissing her thoroughly, all consuming until she needed to pull away to take in gasps of needed air.

"Damon," she whimpered trying to catch her breath as she dove back to his warm lips. Her fingers clenched in the wet strands of his hair. "I love you, so much...I can't lose you...I can't," she breathed between more hungry kisses.

He broke away from her lips to look at her, his one palm running down her cheek, tucking her dark hair behind her ear. "You won't lose me. I love you too angel...so much."

She felt another sob coming up her throat. Every thought hurt so so much. Elena was about to dive back in to keep kissing him when he spoke again. "We could try something...to hear them."

Dark brown eyes fell closed a moment to focus on what he said. It took her a bit to remember what she had begged him for only a few minutes ago. "Really?" she replied and he nodded smiling back at her.

He nuzzled her nose with his and smoothed her hair back from her one shoulder. "More blood...could work to strengthen my senses Elena. It could be worth a shot." She nodded eagerly and was willing to try anything.

Damon still cradled her in his arms against the wall, her legs wrapped around him. He bent his head to the crook of her neck, his tongue darting out to lick at her pulse point. He sucked at the spot gently first before his fangs lowered.

Tiny pin pricks of pain raced through her as she felt his fangs sink into her skin. Her head fell back against the wall, the rhythmic pull of her blood making her heart race. It felt incredible and so intimate to be held up in his arms, the water falling down all over them as Damon fed on her.

His one hand cradled her body against him, while the other went under her tank top and up her nearly bare back to hold her in place as she arched off the wall. Damon sucked slowly and ever so gently, making her whole body tingle from all the sensations. He cradled her neck and head in his palm, his mouth buried in her throat.

Just as she started feeling light headed he pulled back, her blood on his lips for a second before the water washed it away. His hand slid back down her back and around to her stomach, his palm flat between them.

Elena watched, mesmerized as his eyes fell closed in deep concentration. A smile started curling from the corners of his lips and his other hand went up to her head. His fingers tangled beneath her hair, his hand flat on her temple. Damon's beautiful blue eyes fell shut again and she closed her own, hardly able to contain her excitement.

Loud, echoing sounds filled her ears. She again saw brightness behind her closed eyes, like sunshine as the precious beating hearts were so clear and strong. Elena basked in the sound, the beauty of life. These babies were such miracles, conceived of a vampire and a human. Something that had never been done in the history of their kinds. She wanted to stay here safe in Damon's head, safe from the witches, from Klaus finding out she was alive. Safe from ever leaving the security of his arms around her.

* * *

Elena was shaking as Damon finally put her down on her feet, pulling her from his mind. She wiped the water from her face and saw him staring back at her. He looked disappointed and she had no idea why.

Damon dropped his eyes from hers. "I'm sorry I couldn't hold it longer Elena. I tried. But I didn't want to take anymore blood from you."

She shook her head back and forth, cupping his face with her hands. "No, no Damon that was amazing. Thank you so much." She smiled wide, still trying to hide her fear from him. Sharing that moment with their children had given her the small sampling of peace she needed right now.

He shut off the water and helped her out of the stall, quickly wrapping a towel around her. He pulled another towel around his hips too and moved back toward her. Elena felt her legs still so weak and moved to sit on the counter before she fell down.

Damon was standing in front of her, using a third towel to dry her hair as she just watched him silently. Elena drew in a deep breath and leaning forward she reached for him. She held his head still, her eyes locked with his and he let the towel fall to the sink behind her as she swallowed hard.

"Damon, Maddox said this night...was our last night...together." She felt the tears start to flow already as she forced herself to continue. "He is taking me to Klaus...and said you won't even be there!" she cried out.

Damon was shaking his head in clear defiance of everything she was saying, rubbing his hands up and down her arms. She nodded more to him. "It's true Damon. He said he's giving you to someone he owes and I'll be his then."

"What? No! Hell no! Elena, that will _never_ happen." He grabbed her shoulders, before sliding his hands up to cradle her face like she had just done to him. "I will never leave you again. I almost died when I thought you and our babies were dead. He would have to pry my cold dead hands from you to have you."

Elena let out another sob, the tears streaming freely down her cheeks to his hands cradling her face. "I don't want you to die for me either Damon! I want to live with you...with our family!" She shook him, her fingers gripping the hair at the base of his neck. "I want to marry you...not lose you!"

Damon looked so sadly back at her red rimmed eyes. She could barely see him through her tears and she was so sick of crying already. "I can't...Damon. I can't..." she tried to say before he wrapped her back in his arms holding her tight.

She had said those very same words way back in the tomb when Damon had been chained up and on his knees ready to let Stefan sacrifice him to save her. She had not known at all then how deep her feelings would go for him. But she had thrown herself in his arms even then, not knowing how to let him go.

Now though she loved him more than anything and could not even imagine life without him.

Damon shushed her, his hands running through her wet hair and his lips on her head. "There has to be something...I am not giving up Elena. I just got you back..."

She nodded back to him, her eyes squeezed shut as she rested in his arms. There had to be something.

Sniffling she lifted her head. "All I know is I'm his bait to get Klaus to trust him enough to get close so they can overpower him. His witches, his coven did a spell with my blood and our babies and they know where he is and they want to use me to break a centuries old spell that links witches to Klaus."

Damon's blue eyes widened. "But Klaus thinks you are dead. That makes you safe. This...everything they are planning is not safe. I nearly died thinking you were dead Elena. How can this be what they want?"

"They don't care about me or us or anything. Only that our babies can be used to break them away from Klaus for good. Part of me just wants to die with you Damon before they can tear us apart forever."

A look for pure shock raced across Damon face at her words. She nodded to him knowingly. "I know, I know I could never let our babies die." She sobbed more and he held her to his shoulder, stroking her hair soothingly.

"I could protect you. Feed you my blood," he whispered into her hair. "And then if you died with whatever they did to you… you could come back? It's something." Damon backed up and looked hard in her eyes, searching them for her response.

She knew he was trying to help. Slowly she shook her head. "No, how can we take that risk...not knowing what it could do to the babies Damon. And if you turned me fully before then, Klaus would kill my whole family; Jeremy, Jenna, probably Bonnie too and anyone I ever loved...so I can't do that. I can't risk all their lives and yours too."

The conversation died at that. Neither of them had any other idea what to do. Damon helped her dry off and scooped her up off the counter and into his arms. He carried her back to the bed and laid her down. The mattress sunk as he stretched out beside her and gathered her back in his arms.

They lay there in the near darkness, Elena's head on his chest and her molded to his side. Her one leg was draped over his, her fingers tight around his waist. Damon curled her close, pulling the blankets up from the floor and around her. The tank top was still damp and starting to feel uncomfortable, so she slipped out of his arms and walked back to the bathroom, discarding the tank top and finding his black button down shirt on the floor.

Elena saw Damon turn in bed to watch her as she slipped it on, leaving it open before crawling back in with him. The bed was small but she nuzzled in as close as she could. Her nearly bare body was flush with his, the heat from him soothing the chills she was feeling.

Damon's voice was low and rumbly by her ear. "Are you sure you don't want to keep trying to escape Elena? I mean I did try every damn inch of the walls and floors and to break the bars on the windows before when I woke up and saw you were gone but we could..."

She lifted her finger to his lips. "No, I know if there was a way out you would have found it. I know you did your best Damon." She nuzzled back in on his chest. "I just want you to hold me...okay and talk about our future. There is no way I'm going to sleep when this might be the last..."

Now it was his turn to put his finger on her lips. "You can't...I won't let you think like that Elena. I am not losing you again and sure as hell not to Klaus. I will think of something...I promise you."

She nodded, lifting her head to see him gazing down at her so seriously. She trusted him with all her heart. It was everything else that terrified her.

* * *

 **AN: It looks pretty bleak right now but Damon's mind is racing to come up with a plan to escape I promise you. They are more in love than ever and are fighting to get to their happy ending.**


	9. Against All Odds

**One more double update for you this weekend! Not just one more chapter but 2...Hang in there with me a little longer...**

* * *

Damon gently shook her awake again. This was the third time in probably an hour that he felt her start to nod off again. She was laying tucked in under his arm, her head resting in the hollow of his throat.

They had talked about everything the last few hours. How Elena felt about the whole pregnancy. If she was feeling any more pains or nauseousness. If she was having any cravings. He even brought up her whole needing to have him in the cave back at the cabin so badly with all the danger around and was making sure she didn't want them to be more intimate now.

She had assured him that right now she wanted nothing more than to hold him and feel safe. Her stomach had been doing flip flops since the shower and so she wasn't feeling much of anything else.

Damon said he would do whatever she needed and that had brought about a sweet kiss that turned heated very quickly. He wished he could just stop time more so now than he had wanted to in the cave then and never let her go.

But time was their enemy...time was like a thief in the night that they couldn't even see to stop it or run from it. As a vampire he could run from almost anything. But this, this neither of them could run from.

They had kissed and touched and lovingly memorized all they could of each other while still for the most part staying somewhat dressed. Elena kept insisting that they didn't know when Maddox would show up again and she couldn't handle any more advances from the warlock.

Damon had rolled on top of her, as she tugged on the back of his neck, kissing him hungrily and passionately. She had broken away from his mouth, stifling sobs and he cradled her close, pulling her lips back to his, swallowing her pain and the sadness in the sweetness of his kisses.

He traced her face, caressed the curve of her jaw, kissed down her throat, buried his head between her breasts. He licked and sucked down her belly, feeling the slight swell of it already. Their make out paused then as he kissed all around the skin of her stomach, feeling the heartbeats flutter under his lips.

Laying his head down he talked to his babies, telling them how beautiful their mother was and how brave and strong. Telling them how much their parents had overcome to get to this point. That no matter what or who tried to pull them apart, daddy always loved them. He would move heaven and earth to be with them.

He talked about playing football when they were older, growing up with animals to care for and riding horses. He told them about their uncle who loved them so much too and that his brother saved their lives and brought them back together.

Elena was laying still above his head, her fingers tangling in his hair and he snuck a peek up to her face in the near darkness and saw she was crying more. He crawled back up over her, his baby blue eyes meeting tearful brown. His tongue darted out to lick up the tears that were falling in the darkness as her arms wound around his neck, her lips finding his again.

He felt her body shaking under his, sobs bursting from her lips as she clung to him. They didn't know how to say goodbye at all but were trying to hold onto each other as long as they could. She sniffled and sat up, wiping her face before running to the bathroom and puking again.

Damon followed her quickly, rubbing her back and kneeling behind her. She hadn't thrown up at all since back at the cabin he thought but he had no idea how supernatural pregnancies worked. Wiping her mouth she leaned back into him as he rubbed her arms.

They crawled back into bed after being sure she was okay and she swished her mouth out and lay back down. He slipped on his jeans, socks and boots knowing their time could be up very soon. Elena wordlessly put her jeans and socks and shoes too. She rummaged around in the bag Maddox had left them found a black v neck t shirt and tossed it to Damon. He looked back at her, shrugging it on as she curled her arms around herself.

"You want to keep this one, don't you?" Damon indicated of his long sleeved black shirt on her and saw her nod, her eyes glassy. He remembered how much she loved wearing whatever he had just worn to smell him on it.

He helped her arms in the sleeves of his black leather jacket now too. He wanted her to have this wherever she might end up without him. Damon had given her his jacket the last time they knew they would be separated, before he left the cabin to be decoys with Elijah.

He had proposed to her and given her an engagement ring, her mother's promise ring too. He left anything he possibly could with her, his jacket, an engagement ring, his babies growing in her belly...everything to show her how very much he didn't want to leave her.

Pulling her back in his lap, he wrapped the blanket around them both as he leaned on the headboard, crossing his booted feet at the foot of the bed. Her head was down, against his chest, her fingers clenched in the folds of his tight shirt as he held her as close as he could.

The conversation veered to how she would feel to give birth and if she knew anything about that or how to take care of a newborn. They talked about where they would live and that Damon would help her paint the nursery and build the crib. They talked about dancing by the firelight like in Elena's dreams of him being a father before they even knew about their babies.

Elena shared with him that those thoughts had pushed her to survive when the cabin was burning too. And that before he crashed through the window to save her, she was going to go to Klaus instead of let herself and their babies die there in the cabin.

Damon told her how scared he had been too when he saw the cabin burning and how weak he was, fighting to get to her. He told her Bonnie saved his life and now she was laying in a hospital bed and might not wake up.

Elena told him she had heard some talk about that when she was still trapped in her own mind before coming back. He said how sorry he was that he could not do more for Bonnie too. Damon shared about Caroline too and Elijah preventing Klaus from killing him when Damon had been begging to die after losing her. Elena had clung tighter to him, saying she heard lots of that and had screamed for Damon to not fight him.

They had talked and shared about all they had been through and their determination to survive. Damon told her that there had to be some kind of opening between now and when they got separated to get away. She nodded, pulling his hand down from her hair and kissing the inside of his palm.

His head bent to inhale her scent and kiss her hair when suddenly they could both hear loud footsteps outside the door, coming closer. Elena sat up in the bed fast and he could already see her starting to gasp for breath.

"No, no...not yet...It's too soon," she cried out.

Damon leaned his head to hers to shush her before he unwrapped the blanket, sped fast toward the door and hid behind it. There was nothing they could use as weapon but he just might be able to take him by surprise.

The hall lights were flicked on, crackling a little from likely not being used much. The bolt slid over with a loud clang before the door started opening slowly. Damon could see Elena huddled in the blankets, her heartbeat racing as he passed her a hopefully soothing look.

He had this. All he needed was a split second to snap the bastard's neck.

A flashlight beam spread its light toward the bed across from the door. "Time's up...love birds." Maddox's voice was high pitched and sing songy as the beam of light landed on Elena's shaking body hiding beneath the blanket.

The door was almost open and Damon braced to leap forward…

Fast, but not fast enough.

He growled in pain as just as he was about to jump, the lightning bolts ripped through his head, the force of the witch's power dropping him to his knees as he cried out. Maddox forced him right to the floor, his head close to his. Damon could hear Elena crying out for him but thankfully staying put on the bed.

The warlock leaned over him, his breath hot on his face. "When are you going to realize you can't win here vampire? Do you want me to take you away from her already when you could have the whole plane ride together yet?!"

"No!" came Elena's panicked cry. "Not yet...please," she begged.

Maddox strode towards her and Damon saw her cowering at the head of the bed, still partially under the big comforter. In seconds he felt himself picked up by an unseen force and tossed onto the bed. Elena grabbed for him instantly, her arms around his chest.

The warlock leaned in as Elena was trembling behind Damon. "Then you get your boyfriend to stop pissing me off or he will be spending the flight with a snapped neck in a damn suitcase till we get there!"

Damon lifted his head, still holding it between his hands, the pain making him almost see stars. "Fiance, dick! I'm marrying her," he hissed out, between gasping breaths before falling back into her arms.

Maddox made a face and looked back and forth between them. "My mistake...I wish you both nothing but happiness." His lips curled up in a sick smile. "Its nice to have dreams...but I think nightmare is the better term for what you are both headed for..."

Damon could see Elena shaking her head back and forth fast. "No!" she yelled holding him tighter. Damon fought the lightening attacking his brain and making him so weak. It stopped finally, the warlock right in front of them.

"Can't risk any problems like before on route though..."

And before Damon could call out, he felt his neck snapping, plunging him into darkness.

* * *

The sound of loud engines in his ears pulled him back to consciousness. Damon lifted his head up fast, his eyes darting around to take in his surroundings. He was on a plane, a cargo plane it looked like. There were piles of crates in neat rows along the sides of the walls, all tied down by heavy straps to the floor.

Sitting up more he realized he was tied to a chair and fought to pull his body free. Thick, metal chains were wrapped around his arms and legs, even around his torso, securing him to the steel chair. He shook it back and forth before realizing that the chair was bolted to the metal floor too.

Damn it! Damon swung his hair back from his forehead and could feel something behind him. He strained to turn his head enough and caught sight of Elena, slumped down in a chair tied up behind him. Her back was to him, her hair a curtain around her head, only allowing a small sliver of her face to be seen.

"Elena!" he called out and shook the chair more. He scrunched up his face in concentration but couldn't make out even her heartbeat behind him. Had the damn warlock given him more vervain? He felt light headed, woozy and much too weak to break the chains.

He could hear talking beyond where they were held and saw movement by a hatch that likely led to the cockpit. Damon growled and fought more to get free from the chains, shaking the chair, but it held fast. He could see the links of the chain straining against his pulling, but they did not pop apart.

Swinging his head around more he could see through the small windows that it was still night or maybe just about morning. He had no idea how long he had been out.

His hand was still bare. His daylight ring _still_ missing.

Night he could work with and escape with his girl, if he could get free. Day...he did not even want to think about.

Elena was still with him thank God, but was she okay? He was thankful he at least could not smell any blood on her. "Elena, baby wake up!" he called again, lightly pushing his head back to bump hers. "Elena!"

Damon exhaled in relief when he heard her moan and slowly lift her head. He closed his eyes tight before opening them in fierce determination. He had to get them the hell out of here.

She groaned again and he could already sense her fear without even hearing her heart. But after barely lifting her head he saw it sink down again to her chest, her eyes falling closed.

"Lanie, you need to wake up. I am going to get us out of here, I promise you." Damon soothed and rubbed his head back on hers, trying to rouse her again. It was the only way he could touch her at all right now and he needed her to know he was not giving up.

It didn't seem like they had taken off yet and he could not feel any pressure in his ears or see any movement outside. Looking around more he saw the big metal outer door, with the large handle in the middle at the side of the plane. Bright red signs of warning not to open it while in the air were plastered on the walls all around it.

He saw a large metal cabinet by the door too and a first aid kit hanging on the wall. What drew his attention even more was the bright yellow phone, a satellite phone hanging on the wall!

 _Stefan…_ He had to get to that phone and tell Stefan where they were! But did he even know? They were on a plane sure, but to where? Where was the nearest airport from the old run down mansion nearly 300 miles away from Mystic Falls? He did not even know how long they had driven to get here.

His brother had to be searching for them. Witch locator spells would be useless but he had to somehow reach him to come find them.

The sounds of heavy boots clanged down the metal stairs and Damon swung his head enough to see Maddox step down and head their way. Damon glared at him, his eyes red with his veins bulging.

"Oh good you're up," the warlock said, much too cheerfully. He strode forward and pulled on Damon's chains, making sure he was secure as Damon snarled at him, fighting to break free.

Elena hadn't moved or even made a sound since the first time he called out to her. He was thankful that she wasn't awake now with their captor so close again and knew it would have scared her more. His precious girl had been through enough.

He saw Maddox move around him to face Elena before his eyebrows raised in a teasing way at Damon's death glare at him. He shook his chair hard, straining to break his bonds. Maddox pulled her chair around Damon so it was facing him, her head still hanging down to her chest.

"What the hell..." Damon started to say and Maddox simply held his hand up, sealing Damon's mouth closed. His eyes were wide and turned near black in his anger as he watched Maddox lift Elena's head with his hand, stroking his palm down her cheek.

Damon felt his breath nearly choking him in his rage as he shook the chair harder, fighting with everything in him to break free.

Maddox was grinning back at him as he lifted her head more and it fell back down. "She's heavily drugged. She was hysterical once I had snapped your neck," he nodded at Damon and then rolled his eyes dramatically as he sighed. "I just needed her to shut up. So this way, it was a nice quiet ride and she's been much more agreeable..."

The warlock smirked and lifted her head by her hair again and still her eyes remained shut. Damon's heart sped up more as slowly and teasingly the warlock inched closer and pressed his lips to hers, pulling her head in, holding it to his own.

Damon's furious scream was muffled by his sealed lips, his face getting red as he strained to break the chains. Fucking hell did he think he was doing kissing his girl! He drugged her? What the hell else had he done?

The warlock pulled back a few seconds later and licked his lips. Damon wanted to rip his fucking limbs off! His eyes widened still more as the ass started unzipping Damon's jacket on her and then unbuttoning the black long sleeved shirt. His hand slid up her jean clothed thigh as he locked eyes with Damon and smirked at him again.

More screams were muffled as Damon's mouth was still held closed as he shook and strained even more to break the chains. They didn't budge and he finally fell back in the chair, panting hard.

Maddox smiled wickedly, only unbuttoning the top few, enough for her lace red bra to show. Her head was still down and she was still thankfully unconscious. Damon was fuming and started fighting again but the warlock stepped back, spinning her chair back around behind him.

"So predictable…good to know you can't get free vampire. I wasn't quite sure how to check the strength of those chains, but that worked better than I thought! Enjoy the ride and the last of your time together…" Maddox said smoothly while stroking the hair back from Elena's face.

Damon fought to cry out, to beg him to let him hold her just once more. This was not how he thought they would be in their last hours together. He needed to hold her. His whole being ached for her and still did not even let himself think of them being torn apart again.

Maddox though ignored him and stood up, coming back around to face him. "When we land _you_ are no longer my responsibility. I'm sure you understand my reluctance to more relaxed accommodations, but you keep trying to kill me so we will stay just like this for the trip." He licked his lips once more before turning away and heading back up the stairs.

The hatch door slammed from above and finally Damon felt his mouth free. He wanted to scream at the damn witch and tear him apart but instead just laid back nearly gasping for breath from what had just happened.

Closing his eyes he fought to find his calm. He had to find a way to get them out of there, before it was too late and they might never see each other again.

* * *

The plane jerked and the engine sounds grew louder as he felt them jolt to life. They were moving! Damon growled again and used every bit of strength he had to pull on the chains. "C'mon!" he hissed out, cursing how weak he felt.

He needed blood.

He knew it. It had helped before to allow him the strength to hear their babies heartbeats. Blood now might give him what he needed to break the chains.

The rumbling got louder as he felt them speed up. The lights streaked by the windows as the plane taxied for take off. Damn it he had to do something or they would have to jump in order to get away!

Damon tilted his head back again to try to wake her up. In the course of a few seconds he had already talked himself into feeding on her more. Even if she was weak from blood loss he could carry her, even tandem jump with her to get them away to safety.

"Elena! Please wake up! You have to wake up," he tried again and nudged her more with his head. He had already tried to reach around enough to feed on her neck, but from this angle he couldn't reach far enough. She had to move for him.

"Elena!" he called again louder and finally he heard her moan and lift her head. She turned around enough for him to see her brown eyes widen as she took in everything around them. He offered her a weak smile, trying to force down his own fear. She was noticing now too that his shirt on her was unbuttoned partway and started fighting the ropes tying her to her chair.

"Baby, hey. You need to stay calm. Look at me Elena. Focus on me." Damon soothed, his voice soft and warm as he strained his neck around to help her keep her eyes on him. "That's it. Just breath," he encouraged her. "I need you to shift the chair closer to me Elena. Can you do that? We need to hurry." He knew her chair wasn't bolted down like his was and with them taking off soon her chair could slip even further away if they didn't hurry.

"Okay...I'll try," she whimpered out, her voice sounding so weak and he smiled again at her.

"You can do it. I know you can. I need to feed Elena or I won't be able to break the chains," he told her. She nodded slowly looking like she understood and started rocking back and forth on the chair to shift it more toward him. "That's it. Just a little more..." Damon directed and she cried out as she pinched her hand between their chairs before tipping it back more.

He leaned back as far as he could and with one more push she let her chair tip back so her head was resting on his shoulder. Damon moved her hair back from her throat with his nose, enough to expose the smooth skin of her neck.

"Hold as still as you can sweetness. I promise I will get you out of here." She nodded and he saw her tied hands curl around the sides of his chair as the plane started lifting up. Damon felt the pressure changing as they headed up into the sky.

Taking a deep breath he plunged his fangs into her neck, sucking deeply. Elena whimpered at the pain as the plane lifted up more. He struggled to stay still enough and felt his fangs tearing slightly in her skin, causing her to cry out more.

Damn it this better work, he thought. It was ripping him apart inside to be hurting her. But she held tight to his chair and stayed as still as she could. He gulped a few more times, feeling the warm, rich human blood set fire to his body.

Damon let go, just as he felt her fingers slipping from his chair and her head falling back on his shoulder more. Her eyes started closing and he heard her heart now beating so slowly. He clenched his fists and stretched with all his strength to pull his hands away from the chair.

Slowly he saw a chain link start to bend. Yes, it was working!

Elena still lay back limply over his one shoulder and he could barely hear her heart beating. Had he taken too much? He grunted and groaned, cursing under his breath to break the chain. Finally it bent enough to snap and he did the same on the other one till he had pulled himself free of the chair.

Damon spun, lifting his head and shoulder last and caught her chair before it fell. Ripping apart the ropes around her wrists and ankles he pulled her into his arms. He dripped some blood on her neck right away, still not daring to feed her any. His fingers were quick in buttoning up his shirt on her as he looked around. The hatch door above was still closed. No one had heard anything.

He blurred with her in his arms toward the door and grabbed the sat phone from the hook on the wall. Struggling to remember his brother's new number, he punched it in fast and it started ringing right away.

Damon was looking around wildly making sure they were still alone and quickly zipped up his jacket on her and leaned up to open the cabinet. He grabbed a parachute from its hook and laid her down to strap it onto him as fast as he could. The phone clicked to life and he heard his brother's voice!

"Stefan!" he hissed as quietly as he could. His brother was already trying to interrupt and saying how he had been looking everywhere for them. Damon broke through, talking louder. "Stefan. We are in a plane. We need you to find us! We left from an airport close to the house that Rose took Elena too. You have to get here fast! We are going to jump. I'll call you when we land."

Damon kept the phone on and tucked in it his jacket on Elena as he stood up to pull the door open. She started moving around on the floor and groaned, her hand going to her neck wound. Damon cringed at the blood from the torn apart skin but he had healed it the best he could now.

She pulled herself up on her elbows. "Damon, what happened?" she breathed out, hardly opening her eyes and he nodded to her before turning to the door. He froze seeing light shining through the window and could see the sunlight spreading across the sky.

Sunlight...

Oh no, no, no. Shit, that could not be happening. Not when they were so close to freedom...

* * *

Damon cursed and slammed his hand on the wall. She didn't look to even know what was going on, her eyes falling closed again. He looked forlornly at her as she forced her eyes open again.

There was no other way…

Damon dropped to his knees in front of her and shrugged the parachute off his back and started strapping it around her, snapping up all the clips and belts. Elena was blinking slowly, fighting to stay awake. She was looking at him in confusion as he tugged on the straps. He cursed again, knowing he had no choice. She wasn't strong enough. He had taken too much blood for her to make it.

Ripping into his wrist he forced it to her mouth as she fought his hand. "Damon! No..." she choked out, swallowing and coughing before swallowing more of the thick healing blood. Her eyes looked wildly back at him and he knew she was scared of what he just did.

He stroked down her cheek, wiping the blood from her lips. "I'm _so_ sorry Elena. I had to risk it. I have to believe that our babies will be okay with my blood in you."

Damon lifted the phone from his inside pocket on her and held it up. "You need to call Stefan when you land Lena. The number is already in there in case the phone cuts off. Call him and he will come get you."

Elena looked back and forth at the phone and back up to his eyes. "Get me? Land? Damon...what about you?!" Her voice cracked with emotion as he leaned in and quickly pressed a kiss to her lips, silencing more of her whimpered questions. Her fingers were tugging on his t shirt as he pulled back to look deeply in her eyes. Damn it, he could hardly force the words he had to say past his lips.

"I can't come Elena. You need to be brave and take care of our babies." Damon swallowed a huge lump in his throat, fighting tears pooling at his dark lashes.

He hauled her to her feet as carefully as he could as she was still clinging to him. "No! What are you talking about?!" she cried out, her fingers tight around his arms, drawing blood trying to hang onto him.

Damon sucked in a deep breath and held out his hand up to her. She blinked, her eyes widening and released his arm to stroke down his empty finger. He saw the shock and horror in her eyes as he nodded slowly.

"I'll burn. I'll burn alive before we would make it back to land Elena." She was already shaking her head wildly back at him.

He leaned her against the metal wall beside the door and cradled her head in his hands as she continued to shake it back and forth. "I have to take the chance that I can still get away and come back to you. You have to believe that angel!"

Elena was fighting him more, her arms tight around his waist now. He moved back from her and pulled on the handle, yanking it down and the door flew out and broke off in the wind. There was a loud exploding sound and the plane shook back and forth slightly.

What was happening? Shit, had the door taken out one of the engines? Damon tried to lean closer to see but the plane jerked again turning in the sky and light spilled into the plane. He darted back fast, as it started burning his bare arm. He needed to hurry!

It felt like pure hell for Damon to pull her arms off him. He quickly tossed any more parachutes from the cabinet out the door before grabbing the harness and lifting her up. "You have to find her, Stefan. I'm counting on you to protect my family," he called, knowing his brother was listening.

"No! Damon please!" Elena sobbed fighting to hold onto him. It broke him apart seeing the tears streaming down her beautiful face. His ears picked up the sound of the hatch swinging open. There was no more time.

His eyes focused back on his precious girl, as tears slipped down his cheeks too. Instantly he felt his muscles freeze, his head bursting with pain and knew the warlock was trying to stop him.

Damon fought the invisible hold on him with strength he didn't know he had. "I love you _so_ much Elena," he gasped out between clenched teeth.

Maddox was racing down the steps toward them, screaming at him but with the plane rocking back and forth he slipped on the last step and landed on the metal floor.

The raven haired vampire was fighting against the sharp blasts of power attacking him and growled out in determination, taking slow, heavy steps forward. He could feel the burning on his skin again and with one more look back in her terrified yet gorgeous eyes, he pulled the ripcord on her parachute while hurling her as fast and as far as he could out the door and into the open air.

"Damon!" her scream echoed as he saw her pulled up and out of view by the parachute as he fell back.

Maddox stumbled forward and stopped burning through his brain and instead flung Damon across the plane to crash against the wall on the other side. He landed hard on the steel floor, his ears ringing from the impact. His skin healed quickly and he crawled further away from more light coming into the plane from the windows and laid beside the heavy containers.

Maddox was cursing, holding tight to a handle while leaning out the door looking for her. Damon pulled himself up from the floor, his head falling back against one of the metal boxes. He started laughing despite pain he was in and turned his head slowly toward the warlock. A smirk grew on his lips as he laughed again.

"She's safe now..." Damon gasped out and instantly felt his throat being tightened by Maddox's invisible grip. He was lifted off his feet and slammed him against the side of the container.

Damon grinned again, fighting to take a breath as he felt blood dripping down the side of his cheek. He felt pain all over his body but still could not stop grinning that he had gotten Elena away from that monster.

She was not on her way to be handled back over to Klaus who thought she and the miracle babies were all dead. Stefan would find her and she would be well protected by him and Elijah. He promised her he would find a way to get her out of danger and he did it.

Against all odds, he did it.

Damon lay panting on the floor, still holding his head as the wave of pain kept building. Oh yeah, he had pissed the warlock off big time.


	10. Fighting Like Hell

Maddox was furious, his rage coming off him in waves as he slammed his fist into Damon's face. His head snapped back, the coppery taste of blood in his mouth. He laughed more, with blood coating his brilliant white teeth.

She was free and would be safe. Stefan would get to her long before anyone else could. There was no way that Maddox could go after her without a parachute.

Swallowing hard he felt the warlocks grip invisibly tight on his throat again. "You lost dick..." Damon hissed out, his voice strong despite the pain that he could barely breath.

Maddox stared hard at him leaning right up in his face, grabbing him by the front of his shirt. He looked like he had so much he wanted to spit out at him in his anger. "So did you vampire," he spat between clenched teeth.

But seconds later, the plane shook again and Damon saw shock and fear in Maddox's eyes as they both looked around at what was happening.

The crates had started sliding around on the floor, the metal clasps on the straps snapping apart, one by one. Some smaller crates were pulled away in the wind and out the open door and another explosion sounded from outside. _Uh oh, not good._

The warlock looked around wildly before tossing Damon back down. He grabbed for another phone on the wall and punched numbers in, almost looking like he could break it apart in his hand. "What the hell happened?" he demanded.

A panicked voice came through fast. "Pressure is dropping. Instruments are all failing! We lost two engines!" The pilot yelled through the phone, loud enough even for Damon to hear.

 _What? Two engines? They were crashing?_

Damon didn't even take a moment to think and just leapt up at Maddox when he wasn't focused on him and tackled him down to the hard floor. He was fast and slammed his head into the witches head hard and in the next second snapped his wrist before he brought it back up to deliver another blast of pain to Damon's brain.

They wrestled on the metal floor, Damon rolling and slipping closer to the open door that the violent wind was pulling them both towards as the plane rocked back and forth more forcefully.

He saw Maddox reaching for the gun on his belt and Damon fought him to grab it. It went off once, twice, the crack of the first bullet hitting a metal wall and ricocheting around the open space before tearing through his shoulder as he screamed out.

The other bullet buried through the center of a window and the glass cracked more and more till the window shattered and another gust of wind whipped around the cabin. They swung the gun the other way still firing, hearing the bullets shoot out fast above them.

Damon was fighting like hell to keep the wooden bullets away from him while also rolling away from the sunlight that had burned him a couple places already. Another bullet bounced dangerously close to his head as Maddox slammed his skull back onto the metal floor.

The plane shook more, the engine whining as the wind grew stronger. Boxes tipped fully over, some of them cracking open as they crashed together, scattering more wood pieces and their contents all over the floor. The crates looked to be full of medical supplies, cases of bottles and vials and rolled up blankets and boxes of bandages.

The warlock had grabbed a piece of wood as it flew across the floor and tried to force it down into Damon's chest as he fought to get free. Damon groaned and held it back with both hands, feeling the wood scrape up his palms. His hands were dripping blood as he groaned and grunted, fighting to live.

Damon could feel the brain bursts again and strained as hard as he could to keep the wood from piercing his skin. Maddox was grinning again.

"I was going to finally be free of that pathetic Original and you ruined it for me!" the warlock hissed at him. "If I don't get what I want...neither do you..."

Damon gasped as he felt the stake pierce through his skin, inching closer to his heart. NO! He screamed at himself. He was not dying here!

Maddox was thrown off balance for a split second from a crate sliding past him and catching him the shoulder. He cringed shaking his head from the pain when Damon forced his head up and raked his fangs through the warlocks hand. He dropped the stake fast and it went flying out the door as he screamed, pulling his hand back as blood spurted from his wrist.

Maddox was glaring at Damon, wrapped both his hands around his throat and squeezing with what felt like superhuman strength while pressing his head hard into the floor. Blood still flooded from his wrist and sprayed over the vampire's face.

Damon was reaching wildly for anything to grab onto and his fingers brushed against the chains that had tied him to the chair before. He stretched to pull them closer, the metal scraping along the floor. He wrapped them fast around the warlocks neck and started to pull as hard as he could to tighten it around his throat.

Maddox let go of Damon's throat instantly to frantically grab for his own, trying to pull the chains free.

Maddox was gasping and choking and now it was Damon's turn to grin wickedly back at him. "You were saying... _I'm_ going to die here? I think you have that backwards witch!"

He clenched his teeth, blinking away the blood in his eyes while pulling tighter on the chains. The warlock was fighting hard, his lips turning blue that he could not take in another breath. Damon had him, finally...all he had to do was hold on a couple more seconds...

* * *

The plane lurched again and they skidded across the floor to slam against the opposite wall. Damon clung tight to the chain, dragging Maddox with him to crash them both against the opposite wall. He could hear the bones in the warlocks neck start to crack before he hit the wall. What he didn't count on was that side of the plane bathed them both in bright sunlight and instantly he felt his skin burning!

Damon screamed as it shone down across his face! It felt like fire, white hot, searing pain and he fought to shift his body out of the light.

The warlock spun them around so Damon was under him as he shook himself free of the chains. Forcing Damon's chin up he held tight, letting the sunlight sizzle and bubble on his skin.

"Ahh," Damon cried out as he felt the burn increase, hotter to the point that he could feel his skin melting from the insane heat. Just as it burst into a full flame on his face, the plane went falling into a nosedive and Damon fell with it, out of the light and gasped out in shocked relief that he was still alive!

He slid backward fast, slamming against the back wall hard and wooden crates nearly crushed them both as they crashed to the wall just after them. Damon dove up and almost out of the way as a crate smashed Maddox into the wall, crushing him tight to it. It only caught Damon's ankle, breaking it fast and trapping his leg between the crates.

He pulled at his near crushed leg as he heard yelling and the pilot appeared and fell down the ladder from the cockpit. He was holding another parachute and was yelling that he needed to get out of there. Barely scrambling to his feet, the pilot got knocked down by the wind and smashed his head on the wall, crumpling his body to the floor. He was out the open door, taken by the wind in seconds and gone to fall to his death.

Damon let out a gasp of shock as everything was happening so fast and more and more things from the crates were flying up and out the open door. His shoulder was sliced by a plastic box flying past him and he moved back tighter against the wall.

Then in his panic of what to do next Damon saw the parachute the pilot had tried to hurriedly put on sliding back and forth, suctioned up against the wall on the far side of the door...inching closer and closer to open air.

If he could just get to it…

He pulled frantically at his foot, watching still to see if Maddox was still alive. He could see blood all down the warlocks head and neck as his eyes fluttered open.

Damon watched in shock and surprise as the warlock lifted first one arm and then the other, snapping bones back into place before cracking his neck and straightening that too! Holy shit he was a vampire too! He could be both somehow? How the hell was that possible? The gushing blood from his wrist had healed too! Maddox started pushing at the crate trapping him and it slid slowly back away from him.

There was no more time to waste making sure the creep was dead or he might be too. Swinging his dark hair from his face, with one more hard pull, he ripped his leg free and limped toward the door. He fought his way up the wall, holding onto any handles on the sides of the plane to pull himself back up to the doorway. They were crashing fast.

He grunted and gritted his teeth, reaching for the parachute while sliding along the wall above the open door. A blanket flew at him, blocking his view from the parachute before it started flapping and getting pulled out the door. With lightning fast speed he grabbed the end of the thick wool blanket and pulled it around his head and bare arms.

He was going to die if he stayed in there...in a fiery finality that there was no coming back from.

Or he could take the risk of the sunlight outside...and hope it didn't kill him before he got to the ground...

Maddox had pushed the last crate away and started climbing up the wall toward him as the plane freefalled. Damon's fingers brushed the edge of the parachute and he stretched more forward. He could see the ground coming up fast and felt the sunlight burning him more as he pulled the blanket more over his head.

One last push with his feet and he had grabbed the parachute and pulled it toward him.

The ground loomed faster, the whine of one of the engines loud in his ear as Damon raced to pull the straps around his back. He whirled around fast when he felt a hand dart out fast and grab for his ankle and he saw the warlock pull himself forward, jumping in mid air at him to grip the parachute too...

* * *

Elena stumbled weakly through the doorway into the Salvatore mansion. It was hours since Damon had pushed her out of the plane and she had never been so scared in her life as she fell through the sky...away from him. He had fed her his blood before throwing her out the door and she only now realized that she could have died with vampire blood in her system if anything had gone wrong with her parachute.

She had felt so weak from how much blood he had taken in order to break his chains but had remembered every second of him holding her and calling Stefan and then seeing the pure horror on his face before he told her he couldn't jump with her.

Her hands were tight around herself as she shakily stepped through the doorway before Stefan closed it behind her. He tried to comfort her, to hold her as she had been shaking nonstop since she had woken up at the airport terminal.

Stefan had told her that he had called ahead and gotten emergency crews out scanning the sky for her parachute right after he got the call from Damon. She had been choking on sobs as she told him where she had landed and that she had seen the smoke and heard the explosion of a plane that had crashed in the distance.

She kept screaming that Damon was on that plane and could not even fathom losing him she had been in such panic. Stefan had barely been able to calm her enough to find out where she was. He said later that the parachute seemed to have a light flashing on it which had made it much easier to find her and in no time she heard the whining sounds of an ambulance coming closer.

She was wrapped in a blanket and curled up into herself when he woke her. Elena had tried to speak but could hardly catch her breath when she realized she had been taken to the airport and even further than where he could be. He could need her. He could be hurt or trapped.

She needed Damon. He had to be okay.

Damon had still been up there. He said he couldn't jump cause he didn't have his ring. But if it was their plane that crashed... _No, no, no. She refused to even think it._

It had been such a shock when Damon told her he couldn't go with her. In all that had happened since she was brought back to life she had no idea he didn't have his ring. But he would have died if he had jumped too, wouldn't he? The sunlight had been bright across the morning sky, peeking up from the horizon in multiple shades of orange and yellow against the fading darkness. As soft and soothing as the light was to her, it would kill him, no question.

Elena had been pulled back by the emergency crews as she had run toward the crash before they stopped her and she felt herself faint in the one paramedic arms. When she woke up Stefan had been at her side, holding her hand and she had nearly jumped up calling out Damon's name. She had seen the devastation on Stefan's face. He knew. He must know what happened.

Stefan had held her screaming and fighting in his arms as she begged him to take her to the crash site.

She needed to see with her own eyes. Her thoughts were consumed with Damon and the terror that he really could be dead. She had just come back to him. There was no way...he could not leave her.

He had finally driven her to the crash. There were emergency crews already trying to put of the fire. It still burned bright and hot against the late afternoon sky. It looked like a sauna in there and she had run, screaming his name around the whole plane before she collapsed to the damp ground. Stefan had wrapped her back in the blanket she discarded and slowly lifted her up and into his arms.

The officials met them saying there was no way someone could have survived that crash. But it was still burning too hot to even see who had still been in there when it exploded. Elena kept shaking her head in disbelief.

It had taken a huge amount of convincing before she finally relented and allowed Stefan to take her home, back to Mystic Falls. She needed to be hidden so no one knew she was alive too and it somehow got back to Klaus. Stefan shook her by her shoulders after she scrambled out of his arms and told her Damon would want her and his babies safe. She needed to do what Damon would have wanted.

He was right. Damon risked his life to get her to safety. She knew he would not want her out in the open, risking her life more. So she had curled up against the door of the passenger seat of Stefan's little red car and closed her eyes, blocking everything out. Praying it was all just a nightmare. Even if she was back with the warlock, at least Damon was there..holding her in his warm embrace.

Elena buried her head in Damon's leather jacket, desperate to smell him on it, before her eyes finally started closing. She had laid like that, her cheek against the coolness of the window as her hand rubbed her belly back and forth.

She awoke with a jolt as Stefan had pulled the car into the driveway of the Boarding house. Elena blinked, pulling Damon's jacket tighter around her. So much had happened since they had been back here. Damon had brought her here, weak and shivering, holding her in his arms as Ric had driven them back from the cemetery. That was back when she didn't even realize how much he would mean to her in such a short time.

Stefan blurred around to her side of the car and opened her door, helping her out. She smiled sadly back at him as he led her to the door. She walked almost zombie like, barely knowing where she was going or why. Everything felt empty, dark and hollow without him. She missed her Damon more than she wanted to take in her next breath.

Her head was down. She had been through so much and felt all the physical exhaustion starting to try to pull her under. Tearful brown eyes widened as she caught sight of material laying on the grass ahead.

She ran, sinking to her knees in the damp grass and picked it up. The shirt was covered in blood. It was his. It looked like it used to be white and gray but now was nothing but a smeared mess of red coating the whole garment. Elena cradled the torn apart material to her cheek and then gasped at the blood stains on the grass in front of her.

Stefan had explained to her back at the airport that Damon had knelt in the grass and took off his ring so that he would burn to death to be with all of them. This must have been where that happened. She looked back up at the cloudy sky, thankful that he had not been able to follow through on his plan then. But had the sky burned her love to death now? Had he jumped to escape certain death from the crash?

Tears streamed down her cheeks as she cradled the bloody shirt against her chest. What she was seeing now was his despair thinking she had died. But she hadn't and they had found their way back to each other again. She had to believe that this could not be the end for them.

Elena took in a deep but shaky breath as she let Stefan help her back to her feet. She could see the cement wall by the door had been violently kicked in and remembered Damon saying how he had arrived home after thinking her and their babies and Stefan were all dead. He must have been the one to destroy the ornate brickwork.

Elena could not even imagine what he must have been feeling. She gasped out as more had been destroyed in the parlor just steps inside the front door. Shakily she moved closer, her heart racing at the thought of her love in so much pain. His heart had been breaking then, just as hers was now.

The couch was over turned, the tables seemingly torn apart. She collapsed on the floor, cradling her stomach in one hand and his shirt in the other as she took in the shattered ornaments, glassware, pictures torn off the walls. Her precious Damon had torn this room apart in his anguish.

Stefan at first stood by the doorway with his hands deep in his pockets, before mumbling that he would contact Elijah and make sure she could be cloaked to protect her and the babies. He left her, squeezing her shoulder encouragingly, saying he would give her some time alone. She barely acknowledged him and kept her head down.

How much had changed for them in such a short time? He used to be her calm for everything. Now she could barely look at him, she felt so broken.

Her fingers were shaking as she saw blood on the floor, smears of it on the couch and the chair arm torn to shreds, the pieces scattered all over the bloody rugs. Every bit of damage was from her precious man breaking apart from losing her.

Elena felt her lip quivering as she laid her head on the side of the couch. "God, Damon..." she breathed weakly. She knew he would have felt destroyed, thinking he had lost them all. But this physical manifestation of his grief was too much. Her whole body already ached, she needed him so much.

Pulling herself up from the floor she made her way down the hall and up the stairs to his room. She _needed_ to feel closer to him right now. Slowly she pushed the door to his room open. The last time she had been here alive and awake he had sat behind her in his tub, washed her hair, slept holding her when she was too scared to be there by herself.

Stepping through the doorway she walked toward the bed. Her fingers clutched at the wooden post on the foot of the bed as she saw blood on the sheets. "Damon," she gasped out again. She remembered how much Klaus had tortured him, his body had been covered in blood when he had saved her from the burning cabin. She had laid against his chest, slick with his own blood as she had been gasping from how much smoke she inhaled.

Elena was ready to crawl into that bed and never get up. She quickly unzipped his jacket on her and pulled her jeans down her legs. Kicking off her shoes and socks, she was ready to bury herself in the sheets. But suddenly her stomach clenched painfully and she raced for the bathroom.

The young brunette held tight to the toilet as she gagged and puked just straight bile. She hadn't eaten anything in a long time. She remembered Maddox bringing her food the night before but her stomach had been so upset and dizzy she wanted nothing, no matter how many times Damon encouraged her to eat.

She lay against the coolness of the bowl, wiping her hair back from her head, gagging some more before she felt the queasiness settle. Closing her eyes she fought to hold back tears...missing him.

A hand fell to her back and she threw her head up, whirling around.

Stefan.

She glared at him, fully knowing this wasn't his fault but was upset anyway. "What?!" she snapped at him, tears slipping down her cheeks again.

He backed away instantly, holding his hands up as she wiped her mouth and stood up.

"I just wanted to make sure you were okay..." he trailed off, looking down away from her eyes.

Elena practically hissed. "No, I'm not okay Stefan. I heard that there is no way anyone could have survived the crash and that if by some miracle he managed to jump, my Damon would have been burned alive in the sunlight. So either way he is gone! There is nothing I can do about that! I _need_ him...and that is the only thing that will make anything okay, ever again!"

She stormed past him and back toward the bed. "Just leave me alone!" she spat in his direction, not even looking back at him.

Elena hugged _his_ shirt around her tighter as she buried her head in the sheets. The blood had dried already but she didn't want clean sheets. She wanted to smell him and dug her nose in his pillow, holding it tight in her arms. She tucked her legs up and pulled the sheet over her before starting to cry quietly into his pillow.

She heard Stefan leave without another word, closing the door behind him as her silent tears gave way to deeper sobs. She caressed her belly, trying to hold onto the only piece of him she had left now.

Elena closed her eyes, imagining his arms around her, wrapping her in his strength. Her head on his chest, hearing his slow and steady heartbeat under her ear. She imagined him tilting her head up, to gaze into the incredible depth of blue in his eyes...he would bend his head, taking her trembling lips between his own and she would be lost in the aching sweetness of his kisses.

She whimpered, curling her body closer, inhaling his scent on his pillow as she fought to hold onto her dream of him. He would move over her, pulling her body beneath his, his arms leaned over her, protecting her, loving her as he dove in for more kisses. She would slide her hands up his back, holding him as close as he could be as their kisses grew all consuming in their fire.

"Damon," she whispered softly, nuzzling her nose more in his pillow, before much needed sleep pulled her under and she was lost in her dreams of him…

* * *

Later that night...

Elena awoke and sat up fast in the near darkness. It must already be the middle of the night, the way the moon was shining down through the tall windows.

She sniffled and could still taste the saltiness of her tears on her cheeks. She had cried herself to sleep with the one hope she would at least dream of him.

The door creaked open and light spilled in from the very dim hallway. She could barely make out the figure of a person that looked to have a blanket draped over their shoulders.

Elena had nothing left. No patience for anyone. She curled herself in a tighter ball and spun facing away from the door. "Go away Stefan!" she snapped out, before feeling her chin quivering and more tears tumble down her cheeks.

But he wasn't leaving and she heard soft padded footsteps coming closer to the bed. She curled deeper into the blankets, her head again buried against his pillow. "I mean it Stefan! I don't want anything from you! Not another blanket, or tea, or a hug or to talk to anyone. I just need him!" she whimpered angrily into his pillow.

She felt a hand slide up her side on top of the blankets.

"He needs you too...so much..." a low voice breathed out.

She spun around instantly.

Elena squinted in the moonlight, hardly daring to breath for fear that she would wake up. She had to be dreaming. He wasn't here. He couldn't be...

But she felt that hand, tangle in the hair by her ear, brushing his thumb across her cheek before the mattress sunk down in front of her.

"I'm here baby...I'm here. _We_ are here...finally." She heard him let out a shaky exhausted breath. "And I am so tired I can barely sit up."

Elena let out a gasp as she cupped the hand at the side of her face and reached out in front of her to feel warm, soft skin. She wasn't dreaming…

She moved to sit up on her knees, caressing the face she could barely make out in the moonlight, her fingers skimming over the silky, dark locks behind his ear.

"Oh my God, Damon? You're here. It's really you?" She saw the silhouette nod slowly and she could just make out his adorable and oh so sexy lopsided smile.

She flung herself in his arms and he caught her. Yet with the weight of her in his arms, he was too weak and fell down into the blankets on top of her.

Rolling to lay beside her, Elena's fingers were already greedily caressing his skin, feeling his cheekbone and the softness of his lips. Feeling more down his chest she realized his shirt was torn in places and there were parts of his skin that were bumpy and rough under her fingertips.

Damon soothed her fears immediately, like he could read her mind. Kissing all over her head and face, and then pressing his lips to the hand exploring him, his breath was warm against her skin. "I'm okay. The sunlight burned me in a couple places almost too long and left some burns, but they will heal. I'm okay really Elena."

She could hardly believe everything she was feeling. "But how...how did you get out? I saw the wreckage. There was so much fuel burning that they said no one would have survived that crash."

Damon nuzzled his nose to hers. "I jumped. I had a blanket wrapped around as much of me as I could. I wrestled with the parachute to get it on while I was falling. The warlock fought me for it but he got knocked out of the plane and I managed to keep hold of the parachute. The sun burned like hell baby but I was spinning fast enough as I fell that it didn't stay in one spot of my skin for long enough. The parachute barely opened seconds before I hit the ground but it was enough to cushion the fall to survive. I broke lots of bones but had your blood in me to heal me quickly."

Elena was listening intently, her arms wrapped around his neck, her fingers playing in his damp hair.

Damon continued. "I landed hard and healed the broken bones and found a place to hide under the blanket from the sun till nightfall. Then I ran for the nearest highway and compelled a lovely young lady to drive me back to Mystic Falls. I didn't know you were here but I knew this would likely be where my brother took you till he could figure out a way to hide you more long term." He stroked his hand tenderly down her face as he spoke. "I'm just so glad I was right and I found you. I am so sorry you thought I had died in that crash Elena. I will always come back to you. I promise baby."

Elena thought she had cried enough for a lifetime but there were still more tears slipping down her cheeks. "I will always come back to you too." She pulled him in, tugging on the back of his neck to press their lips together and he moaned into her mouth.

Damon's hands slid around her waist and up under his shirt she was wearing, ripping it apart and throwing the pieces off the bed as she devoured his lips with bruising kisses. She only pulled back to take a breath. When she broke away from him he quickly pulled his torn and bloody shirt up and off, tossing it to the floor. He made quick work of his jeans and socks too before falling back in the bed with her.

Elena's hands ran up his sides, still feeling sticky areas and could taste the blood on his face but didn't care one bit. He was here, in her arms and they were safe, wrapped in the blankets on Damon's bed. It felt like ages since that first night he brought her home from the tomb and carried her to his bed.

She had no words for the absolute relief and happiness bubbling up inside her. She kept kissing him, tracing her fingers along his face and dropped her head to suck on the hollow of his throat.

"Mmm, God Elena," he rasped out, his head falling back into the pillows.

He spun her under him, the full weight of him pressing her into the mattress. Cradling her face she saw him gazing down at her, his eyes sparking and shiny with unshed tears. "You are safe Elena. We made it to where I have wanted you since the moment you said you loved me."

She nodded slowly, just mesmerized by his beautiful smile as he stroked down her cheek with his thumb. Her legs were wrapped around his waist, holding him tight against her.

Their lips crashed together again, harder, his tongue delving deeper in her mouth as he kissed her like a man starved. His head fell down to her shoulder a minute later and she stroked down his face. He was exhausted and his eyes were already falling closed. "So tired.. and you feel so good," he mumbled into her hair.

Elena wound her arms around his neck, letting him shift himself more to lay only half on top of her as she heard his breaths grow longer and deeper. Damon was asleep in her arms and she snuggled lower, burying her head against his, her arms and legs a tangled mess with his and fell into the most peaceful sleep she had ever had.

* * *

 **A/N: Happiness, peace, freedom. I told you eventually they would get there...just needed to have faith.**

 **Please review. I am eager to hear what you thought of that intense escape and how he found her again when she thought he could have died. I loved how that all came together like I had imagined it.**


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